I really don't know how tmux got so much mindshare over screen. It just isn't obviously better in any way. Maybe screen is just poorly named?
Screen for when I need things ti behave and work a certain way
The latter reason is why Helix is slow in doing similar to vim, I think, despite being far more consistently designed and saner defaults. Everyone knows vim exists.
I've still never switched from screen, personally, though I'm only a light user.
Software packages win over other packages for the silliest reasons.
- persistence of layouts. Screen doesn't remember if you had a split view open, it always opens the current terminal in full screen.
- screen's default hotkey ^A clashes with ssh's escape key. Yes, these are configurable but having to re-populate the same config file is like a papercut every time to access a new system.
Defaults matter, especially if you work across many different systems (and from different customers). At some point, it just becomes easier to learn the defaults than to (over-)optimize to your ideal workflow.