I am sure this is a bug because it makes using the computer so much harder. I used to have the panel showing, and unhide if I moved my cursor over it. It made for a perfectly discoverable and get-out-of-the-way panel. I always configured my KDE4 panels this way. This was a premiere feature and was a reason to use KDE. If it is unmaintained, what does it take to make it maintained?
We have decided to replace this option with the dodge feature, especially since window can cover cannot currently be implemented due to the panel being ported to layershell. I would also be personally against adding back yet another option to panel visibility modes, which we already have enough of.