Hiding a component removes it, causing other components to shift

it’s nice to see that i’m not the only one futzing with q on a weekend…
see the other thread, too. unfortunately, there isn’t a good way to mark forum threads as connected.
i’m using the suggested css, which brings its own issues:
a) either have it hidden, by default, which means it is also hidden in the designer, while i am editing the form or
b) hide when the form loads, which causes the components that are being hidden to flash from visible to invisible.
anyway, since i bumped into this, again, today, i was just checking to see if there was an update on it.