i3 has tabbing so that's a way to hide windows. However, I still prefer work spaces as a high level concept. One window I have always tabbed, namely my command line window for different machines. Occasionally during debugging I also move a tab on top of the monitor.

Long before I used a tiling window manager I tried workspaces, too. But it just made the general chaos worse, not able to quickly find what I wanted. It's "too easy" to open a new window in the wrong workspace. Maybe just a psychological difference, with tiling I have learned not to create a mess.

I prefer a large format 4K monitor (eg 65" TV) with key bindings to warp windows to each of the nine cells in a 3x3 grid.

Short of that, I really want virtual desktops.

Yeah that's probably the best point so far... but if you run out of tiling space with the standard two+ monitors, I'd argue you have too many windows!

A standard where?

Two monitors as a standard being the assumption. Lots of people don't have 'em, especially back when workspaces were first gaining traction. Also note that it's not particularly practical to do intensive window shuffling on tiling WMs.

When you take a break from, e.g. gaming, you would probably want all the related windows to be out of sight. Rather than close all of them and open a new batch for work then later close all the windows and reopen all of the gaming ones, you can simply switch between workspaces.

Berry seems to be a stacking WM, but there doesn't seem to be any way to minimize or otherwise access opened windows from a centralized "task bar" either, so similar workflows apply.

Two+ monitors is the standard?