Would an opt-out be a thing to suggest as a dnn improvement?
It seems to me like that could make skins more dynamic, allow a skin designer to make changes to the skin based on settings/state e.g. different background when admin is logged in)

I'm currently building a skin where you can vary certain things based on certain settings. If you don't set a page logo, you get a different kind of header.

Or am I just doing some silly thing nobody should ever want to do (via the skin)?

Sebastian,
I think the issue here is that panes are only found when not wrapped in another control. It will not be an easy fix I think as that would make the search for panes recursive (with performance implications).

BTW, you can hide panes on pre-render AFAIR.

---