I've also tried evil-tabs, which doesn't work with spacemacs, at all. And eyebrowse doesn't actually use tabs (also it doesn't maintain working directory state when opening a new workspace, fun!)
I dunno, emacs is very much, "Here's a half-implemented solution that pays zero attention to ergonomics. Just... y'know, fix the rest of it so it doesn't totally suck."
And I just don't have the experience to do that yet. Which is why I'm using Spacemacs. Which more or less actually tries to do the ergonomics correctly.
edit: I'm also hoping Cunningham's Law works in my favor here.