Great feedback, I'm just gonna throw a "gtk-layer-shell" on top of the burning pile.

I just don't care though, I've resisted the GNOME-ire until recently (hoping it was "just" drama and would blow over or be fixed by technical decisions in the future) but now, I have given up on the idea that GNOME apps are going to continue to "seemlessly" co-exist in non-GNOME environments, like in the past. Fine.

Fortunately, between various Wayland tiling WMs, KDE, Cosmic on the way, there are other options that don't require GNOME, or even GTK+. Good riddance.