Recently discovered a new terminal emulator for Linux - terminator. After a bit of config:
[global_config]
focus = sloppy
title_transmit_fg_color = "#FFFF00"
title_transmit_bg_color = "#000000"
title_inactive_fg_color = "#A8A3A3"
title_inactive_bg_color = "#000000"
and some getting used to the keyboard commands, I'm really beginning to like it. I've tried window managers based on a similar tiling idea, but didn't like them. But this looks like it could become one of my main work tools.