MC is working as intended. You could call it a feature if you like, or say that the behaviour is by design.
I've never seen a proper write-up of what MC is doing, but essentially MC maintains one display output for any media being played. That display can be assigned to different windows, but only one at a time. For example, it is possible to play something in MC and have a Playing Now window active, then when you open another Playing Now window (another tab with "Player" selected), then go back to look at the first tab with Playing Now displayed, there will be a message under the Cover Art that says: "The display for this zone is owned by a different window". In this case, when you opened the second Playing Now tab, it took control of the playback display. If playing audio and the track has lyrics, those lyrics will be displayed on the second Playing Now tab, but not the first.
You can see a similar thing if you create a Split View using the top menu "View > Split View > Show 2 Views". Then select the tab in the second Split View, and select Player so that it displays Playing Now. Go back to the first Split View window and play an Album, using the Recent Albums View or any other. The Playing Now window in the second Split Window will be updated, and no Display windows will popup above the Action Window.
Note: To see the little "Display" window when you start playing an Album and do not have Playing Now open, you must have the setting "Options > General > Behaviour > Jump on play (audio)" set to "None". Otherwise, MC would jump to the window you set. So if you set that to "Display View" you would get the display shown in your second image.
BTW, you said on that second image "Access track info by dragging mouse to upper edge of the display." I don't get that, or at least I don't get a file list, and I can't think of or find any setting that would make that happen. If I move my mouse to the top of the "
Display View" window the audio controls, seekbar, etc. (basically the "Player Bar" from
Standard View drops down from the top of the screen.
So, everything is working as intended.
PS: Nice concise summary EnglishTiger!
(I should type faster, and not leave half finished posts while preparing dinner!)