To be fair, go code at Google doesn't use the standard directory structure. I had all my go code in one directory and which files were part of which package was all defined in a build file.

What exists in the public world of go was simply what the go team wanted for go and not a compromise to fit in with other systems at Google. I think the fact that you end up with what looks like a monolithic repository is just a coincidence.

In the end ~/go doesn't look a lot different than the @INC path that points to something in your home directory, or /usr/include, /usr/lib, and /usr/bin in a pure C system. It's just the fact that you also put your own code in the same directory as third-party packages that confuses people... but in the end, someone else will consider your package a third-party package someday... so I don't think there's much value in treating it any other way.