>controlling every aspect of your monitor using DDC and other obscure protocols

When clumsy or obscure protocols are involved, I estimate that the hardware and software have not been fully engineered to actually work properly to begin with.

Always a tough and uncertain workaround.

On PC's the default "Standard" W10 & W11 display driver doesn't seem to work with dual monitors very well if at all. Whichever monitor does display, may turn out not to be the "primary" monitor if the OEM display driver is installed. Once you get your multi-monitor layout finalized and saved, it usually doesn't change unexpectedly though, and you should be able to turn on or off monitors in any combination after that.

I think with XP, W7, etc there were differences in multi-monitor graphics adapters and their drivers over a period of time where sometimes the default primary connector would be VGA, other times HDMI. For this reason when multibooting different Windows versions, I would connect a monitor to each of the display jacks at the back of the PC so I made sure to see something on one of the screens and not just a blank.

A lot of times if you boot a PC with only one monitor plugged in, and it's not the recognized primary connector at the time, it boots just fine but you see nothing. And if you plug in the secondary monitor you see nothing there either. Until you reboot. Seems like unless it's proven to work otherwise, you need all monitors plugged in and turned on before you boot. If not the resulting performance or lack thereof can be disappointing.

Different Linux live distros are fairly consistent with each other and usually work for multi-monitors by default without connecting to the internet or installing any display drivers. If you do a lot of configuration to get your desired monitor layout the way you and your mouse like it, and it fails to persist for some reason, that would be about equivalent to booting a live OS which is by nature handling hardware in a default way as newly-discovered devices every time you boot. Kind of like the Mac that wakes up unlike the way it went to sleep.

Like the article hints at, sometimes it's best to carefully wire everything so it's closer to what you want by default, before you start doing any tweaking.

For me nothing is off the table. First of all I like to have a PC for every monitor, while still being able to use dual (or more) monitors with a single PC whenever.

In a multi-desk lineup with 5 monitors from left to right, every monitor will have an average of 2 or more cables or adapting cables connected in the back, which lead up to where the PC's are.

First of all you have to really be able to get more out of 5 than you were 2 or 3, you may know who you are.

That can entail a bit of manual plugging and unplugging of display cables, as well as OS & software settings for different workflow configurations, and the idea is to try and accomplish all that using the connectors at the back of the PC's. And minimizing the need to change cords behind the monitors if that is the least bit more inconvenient. But doing it anyway whenever needed.

This can get kind of tedious, but eventually you end up with a fairly optimized procedure for extracting maximum utility from minimal rewiring. And since it started out a bit better than having fewer monitors to begin with, that's when it feels really better. This is the point it may be possible to add some hardware switching for your display wiring (although a complicating factor) which could replace occasional manual plugging with manual button-pushing after that.