It's not just a workaround (at least not just for this issue) but a very effective way to manage really big projects (that you may not even see "together" in SU at all but export to other apps).
It's also an easy way to work on certain smaller elements when your model is already very cluttered with details. Or work on objects that would otherwise be off-axis all the time and it's easier to do this way then changing axes on the fly etc. etc...