Is there a reason to do this over just giving the nic for the vm/container a vlan tag?

Ok that was what I thought until I read the last part and got very confused lol

Gnome before it does not appeal to me today. Plasma on the other hand was exactly what I was looking for, plus it's actively maintained and updated.

Very confused by this statement, are you implying Gnome isn't actively maintained and updated or am I missing something?