yeah, me too, in more ways than one...
Sometimes, I wish it would take a holiday and so give the action window a little room to breathe.
Sometimes, I wish it would take a holiday and so give the file list a little more elbow room.
Then (after I've sorted the latter manually) I find myself thinking how cool it would be if when clicking that 'tag' link under image thumbnails, the tree would auto-unhide with the tag window on show, ready for action.
I don't think I'd like it to be deciding for itself. I couldn't handle the tree jumping out/hiding of its own volition. That would be a pain, but certainly, if the tree is hidden, and any action is requested that requires the user to work in the action window, then the tree should automatically unhide itself.
Perhaps a default tree state could be added to either the viewscheme or customise view dialogues?