...I could hear guitars tracks completely cut out whilst another would come in and it was constantly doing this for me this sounded awful on the earphones as you would hear a whole guitar just cut out like the amp had lost power then come back in... but on stereo speakers it creates a pink floydish atmosphere with different elements popping up and fading away.
It took me awhile to mentally get past this type of thing, too. I use to always approach a song recording as though there was an imaginary band playing, and generally, if you have a band, everyone tends to play their parts straight through the song. You never see a band member just stop during some section. They might switch to some different part, but everyone plays.
So the idea of another guitar or keyboard track or whatever...just popping in for the chorus or whatever...seemed odd to me at first, but the reality is that recording is not about capturing a live band performance, for the most part. Yeah, you can do it that way, it's a valid approach...but much of modern record music is about a production that goes beyond the live realm of performance capability.
Of course...the opposite end of that is where people will lose their minds and have a dozen guitars and multiple layers of keys and other elements...because the can (especially in the DAW)...and then it gets harder to give each element any space, or you end up dropping elements in/out of the mix to keep everything up front and more manageable.
Somewhere there is a happy balance...but it's usually dictated by your song, the arrangement and your production goals. If you can work a lot of that out in your head during pre-production...then it's easier to record it with all the elements in mind. If you just stack and stack...you run out of room and/or it's a sonic mess.
I've gone a bit heavier with tracks/elements...but nothing like I see with some modern productions where there's 100 tracks or more. I'm looking to do more sparse stuff with some tracks in the near future...not worry about filling up a mix with elements, but rather allowing just a handful of elements to really breath and create that "space between notes" so to speak. So in some ways, I will get back to thinking about some new songs/arrangements more like capturing a band rather than an embellished production....though I still love doing more involved stuff too, and it's OK to drop tracks/elements in/out of the mix.