I'm filing this issue after enabling the option one too many times on a new install.
I suggest that the "Show package properties in the main window" preferences setting be set to true by default and possibly removed entirely (hardcode true). The information is very useful and barely takes up any visual space for the tab bar. There's functional benefit to showing this and no downsides - it should be on by default. The only reason I see for keeping the option at all, is to avoid preference changes on existing installs, but even that may not be worth keeping the conditional path in the code.