I had to read your comment several time as well as some replies before I understood the problem you're talking about. Turns out that it's never been a real problem for me because I've been using tiling window managers with placement rules for a long time, so basically I configure once "when I have n monitors I want that layout" and I'm done.

I fully understand that tiling WM are not and will never be mainstream, so finding a general solution would be desirable, but I guess for a tech-savvy crowd like HN I want to proselytize tiling WMs a bit. Every time I have to use a regular "hey here are a stack of overlapping windows, have fun" destop I'm genuinely frustrated. It's nice when you're working on a new flow with new apps you're unfamiliar with but once you've got your development "stack" figured out I couldn't imagine coding in an environment where I can't switch to my editor, terminal, browser with a single non-context sensitive command, regardless of where I am.

I suppose just having virtual desktops can be a decent enough compromise (put your editor in a virtual desktop, your browser in an other etc...) but as far as I know even that is relatively uncommon outside of linux DEs.