Sort of. But you have to keep X11 running on another vt. Stopping and restarting X many times in a session is a different story. At least for me.
And even in the case I keep X11 running on another vt, I've found that when using no wm, or a simple one like evilwm, switching back and forth from console (on one vt) to X11 (on another vt) many times does not work well. Eventually it fails.
This is on {Net,Free,Open}BSD.
I don't think that Plan9 has vt's as such. It's more like what the article envisions, with graphics capabilities seemingly woven into the terminal. But you're pretty much stuck in an X11 type environment. Plan9 experts correct me if I'm wrong.
I've always found this "context switch" from console to graphics is like a one-way street. You're not really expected to keep shutting down the graphics and going back to the console. At least I've never found anyone who does that.
I'm a NetBSD user that uses a tiling window manager (i3 - not ion3, it's different). ALT+1 and ALT+2 are where I keep my urxvts, ALT+3 my web browser, etc. The switch happens instantaneously.
Am I mistaken in my understanding of your issue, or is this helpful?
