I wanted to see if others would like me to suggest a feature request for Blender when you are skinning. Based on complex rigs that I skin (using native Blender), I would like to be able to switch armature layers as I weight paint. Today, if you need to change armature layers you have to stop what you are doing, go back to object mode, select the armature then click the armature layer you want. Then you need to go back and select the armature, mesh and then toggle back to weight paint. I think it would be beneficial and certainly time savings to be able to switch layers and include, exclude layers directly. Often times I put deform bones on different layers. (like face, on one layer, main head on another.) It is a real PIA to constantly stop and switch layers when skinning now. If they will put this in, at the same time it would nice to incorporate the layer name add on so you can see the names of the layers as well.
The entire bone layers system needs an overhaul.
I think the easiest thing, for now, is to just use the bone layers manager addon. It sounds like your already using it? If not there really is no reason not to use it. Its free and awesome.
You can use that while your weightpainting as well, it won’t disappear. So I think this solves your workflow issue perfectly.
I expect this and more will be looked at for animation 202X.
I feel like Blender took a big step backwards with weight painting in 2.80 that they’ve never quite recovered from. Multi-object editing and “fade geometry” screwed everything up. I still have occasional problems with fade geometry and bone selections.
If I was weight painting a mesh from scratch, I would just move all deform bones to a single layer temporarily-- you can always move them to different layers afterwards. (If I wasn’t doing it from scratch, I don’t use bones to select VGs anyways-- I’ll usually select a vertex in weight paint/vertex mode, then use the sidebar to select one of its groups.) Just offering as addon-free techniques that work fine, if you’re interested.
I feel you. It speaks volumes when BF own rigger writes an addon whose primary purpose (initially; it has grown somewhat since) was to set viewport settings in such a manner you can actually weight paint when you go into wp mode and on exiting wp mode it restores the previous viewport settings.
I highly, highly recommend it. The context menu that comes with it is also extremely valuable because it allows you to change (and check) all important settings for wp at once.
https://gitlab.com/blender/easy_weight
I’ve participated in a few animation module meetings a few months back with the initial intent to see if I could perhaps bring some of the current issues with wp to light. Regretfully life required my focus elsewhere but i’d love to return to it and bring some focus to it again. My initial plan was to make a list of current issues, settings that bite each other or are confusing etc. Depending on time and motivation Ill probably try again in the future.
Something I have been lobbying for that is related is to fix bone selection in wireframe mode which broke somewhere in the early 2.8 release. I’ve been on that since December last year when I reported it. Essentially its the solid shaded x-ray crap forced upon you when in wireframe mode for pose or edit mode messing up selection. It makes it impossible to make certain bone selections that are a common occurrence during rigging.
There are lots of issues related to the specific armature edit and pose vp modes. Like vertex selection being hidden on backfaces etc etc 
Yes. I use that to get around the 32 layer limit. And, I agree with bandages that the whole workflow process needs reworked. Maybe the best thing to do is to try to get the input to the devs if any get assigned to rethink this entire skinning workflow. The other option might be to just code this add on in the trunk. Thanks for the input. Shout out to bandages.