[louhike]

You still have the issue of the z-index being relative to its parent, and not absolute. So depending on which element it is set, its effect would not be the same. It’s still a good practice to use constants, but I still often had difficulties to place elements relative to each others on the z-index.

[eurasiantiger]

Just use position: relative to start a new stacking context as appropriate.

[JimDabell]

You can use isolation: isolate to explicitly create a new stacking context now. It makes the code a bit clearer because position: relative is used for lots of different things.

[louhike]

I know, but it’s still hard to use on a big website where you have to manage a lot of stacking contexts.