Interesting. I haven't run into that, but my workflow is a bit different. I launch everything through a small dmenu script, then mostly switch between workspaces: browser on 1, terminal on 2, IRC on 3, usually with one maximized window per workspace. So I rarely use Alt+Tab, and that behaviour never really comes into play for me.
Out of curiosity, was that on OpenBSD or the Linux port?
CC: sid77 (nprofile…0049)