Could the theme support axis lines and ticks being _not_ on top of geoms?

There are situations where it would nice to be able to easily make the the axis line/ticks not be on top of geoms.

I noticed the theme argument has a panel.ontop argument. So I wondered if you guys would consider adding equivalent theme arguments for the axis.

Something like theme(axis.ontop = TRUE, axis.ontop.x = TRUE, axis.ontop.y = TRUE).

I suppose for consistency with the existing theme grammar, these axis arguments should apply to the axis text too.

Thanks for your consideration, and the great ggplot2 dev work!

library(dplyr)
#> 
#> Attaching package: 'dplyr'
#> The following objects are masked from 'package:stats':
#> 
#>     filter, lag
#> The following objects are masked from 'package:base':
#> 
#>     intersect, setdiff, setequal, union
library(ggplot2)
library(palmerpenguins)
#> 
#> Attaching package: 'palmerpenguins'
#> The following objects are masked from 'package:datasets':
#> 
#>     penguins, penguins_raw

d <- penguins |>
  add_row(
    flipper_length_mm = 190,
    body_mass_g = 2500,
    species = "Adelie",
  ) |> 
  add_row(
    flipper_length_mm = 165,
    body_mass_g = 3000,
    species = "Adelie",
  )

p <- d |>
  ggplot() +
  geom_point(aes(x = flipper_length_mm, y = body_mass_g),
             colour = "steelblue", size = 3) +
  theme_classic() +
  scale_x_continuous(expand = c(0, 0)) +
  scale_y_continuous(expand = c(0, 0)) +
  coord_cartesian(clip = "off")

p
#> Warning: Removed 2 rows containing missing values or values outside the scale range
#> (`geom_point()`).

#so something like this to make the axis line/ticks not ontop
# p +
#   theme(axis.ontop = FALSE) 
# 
# p +
#   theme(axis.ontop.x = FALSE) +
#   theme(axis.ontop.y = FALSE) 

^{Created on 2025-05-14 with reprex v2.1.1}

Start by reviewing the existing theme panel.ontop behavior and how axis lines, ticks, and text are rendered in ggplot2. Determine whether the proposed axis.ontop, axis.ontop.x, and axis.ontop.y settings can fit the theme grammar, then verify that the chosen behavior applies consistently to the relevant axis components.