To Hide or not to Hide

Questions
1

I have been using two methods of making elements visible/hide.

  1. Through workflows
  2. Through custom states and conditional formatting.
    Interestingly #1 seems to override number 2. So for example if you have a condition that shows an element, but a workflow that hides it. Once hidden by the workflow the condition no longer makes the element visible - until the workflow does. At least that was the behaviour observed in a reusable element. I did not otherwise test my hypothesis.

I can see use for both methods, but wonder if there is good reasons to use, or not use either/or? (Other than being poor “programming” to mix and match since it can “pollute” the logical design?

Thoughts?