I love the idea of XMonad - it is a truly wonderfully useful Windows Manager. However, there is still the Windows leftover in me from years ago where I like prettiness as well as functionality. For me, XMonad is perfect but only when running a terminal and actually programming. At all other times, not being able to use my mouse and clicking big icons is a massive pain in the backside. That could be because I'm currently changing keyboard layout, and typing anything on Colemack takes me ages. Therefore, stumbling upon the ability to make Vim alone act as XMonad makes me very happy.
Requirements:
Et voila, I can split my screen in Vim (:split or :vsplit), open a new bash terminal (ConqueTermSplit or ConqueTermVSplit bash). If I feel the need to swap two windows, I simply move the the window I wish to swap and type \mw, move to the window I want to swap it with and type \pw. Ok, so it's not as slick as XMonad, but man does it make my life easier.
Oh, and remapping the Ctrl+W commands so my ~/.vimrc looks like this:
map <C-k> <C-w><Up>
map <C-j> <C-w><Down>
map <C-l> <C-w><Right>
map <C-h> <C-w><Left>
has made the actual swapping a much more pleasant experience!
Vim, you win again!