Out of sheer curiosity, what kind of setup do you use today? I did briefly try i3-gaps myself but ultimately never daily drove it. (nowadays I run Sway, but with no gaps.)
I was using i3 until the very end though, and I do dearly miss proper window management. My shortcut setup now is an absolute mess. I technically did run i3-gaps because of some features, but not gaps. This was mostly because I actually mostly used a one window per workspace approach, and if more, then a tabbed layout, so no need for gaps there.
I will say though that I run Linux more than ever these days. I'd say the reason has more to do with Windows and macOS feeling like worse prospects than Linux actually improving as a desktop OS...
That said, I'd like to take this moment to tangent. I really, really despise the rise of SOC2 theater. It has largely killed Linux workstations at startups, and I am pretty close to quitting out of the industry due to the amount of stress this has cost me.
That and the "war on hackers" that Apple seem to wage last few years also did not help (breaking uBlock in Safari, inability to permanently disable some system services without having to disable SIP and thus losing ApplePay+disk encryption to name a few)