I propose a pop-up object that when you press and hold pops up a rectangle with a horizontal arc on it instead of a fader, or a surround panner, that would occupy as little as a single square when not in use. One could do immersive panning with an x/y controller and faders for height and size.
I have also often thought of pop up objects like faders .But then realize again that activating a dedicated grid is just as, if not, more practical. And a whole grid allows for larger faders, panners and thus better resolution. Maybe not as techy, though.
And with pop up objects, you would want to be able to have different sized objects depending on the use case. You would also be required to close them via another button tap. Also, there may be some inconsistency in where to object pops up relative to where the button is situated. At least with a dedicated grid, the objects will be in an easy to remember position.
I use dedicated grids a lot - agreed that they are very handy. But I am thinking of a single panner that goes away when you lift your finger, whereas a grid would have to be returned from via a button push. I think a stereo panner would be around 8 to 10 units in width at minimum to be useful; handy for a pop up but maybe cumbersome on a whole page of its own.
Thanks for the FR - this however is quite difficult to implement - however, I have added this to our FR list - we will analyze it for sure.