Slot highlight renders on top of the container title

Ever since 1.21.6, presumably since introduction of bug described in MC-296865, or since the implementation of the fix, slot highlight renders in front of the container title, even when hovered slot is empty.

While this may be considered as a non-bug, and TTF glyphs in titles may be considered a non-feature, I ask moderators and developers to try understand impact of this change. From a 3rd party server owner and developer perspective, it is an UX regression I unfortunately have no control over fixing or adjusting easily.

Seeing MC-296865 has been addressed and previous rendering behavior was partially restored, it makes me think slot highlight rendering changes were also not intended.

Screenshot 1 and Screenshot 2 both use the same resource-pack and a font texture. I attached the resource-pack and you can spawn chests using these commands:

/give @s minecraft:chest[custom_name=[{text:"",color:"white"},{translate:"ui.util.blank.-8"},{translate:"ui.recipes.crafting"}]]
/give @s minecraft:chest[custom_name=[{text:"",color:"white"},{translate:"ui.util.blank.-8"},{translate:"ui.recipes.smithing"}]]
/give @s minecraft:chest[custom_name=[{text:"",color:"white"},{translate:"ui.util.blank.-8"},{translate:"ui.collections.heads.1"}]]

While testing, make sure to place two chests next to each other, making it a double-chest, as the texture expects to cover six container rows.

Screenshot 1 (1.21.5)

Items are rendered on top, as well as is the highlight, but highlight is only visible in place of the rendered item. The rest of the highlight is covered by the inventory title. This is the expected behavior and one that was present for a while.

Screenshot 2 (1.21.6 and above)

Items are rendered on top, as well as is the highlight, though it is no longer covered by the inventory title.

Screenshot 3 (1.21.6 and above)

Highlight is visible even when hovering over an empty slot.

Possible “Workarounds”

1. Both, slot_highlight_back and slot_highlight_front textures are layered on top of the inventory title. Making both of these files transparent effectively disables the highlight in all inventories, which might be preferred over the current behavior for custom servers that rely on this mechanic a lot. It is still a UX regression, arguably more impactful than the original issue.