Thinking back to sawfish and the last time I saw it, it reminds me of jwz's classic "Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers"¹ statement. It clearly isn't the kindest description of the problem, but it does feel valid IMO.
It feels like we've been through so many different "default" window managers with gnome I had to actually look up whether sawfish was just a common replacement or one of the many at-one-time-blessed components of the environment. FWIW, it was the default up to 2.2².
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1. Google it or open the link in a tab without the HN referrer - https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html