Since there are some files that would simply have to be created each time under $GNUPGHOME, I've been thinking a bit more about what sort of approach to take for "fallbacks."

Funnily enough, runtime sockets already adhere to the XDGBDS somewhat by using $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/gnupg as their path, while everything else uses strictly $GNUPGHOME or ~/.gnupg with no other alternative. Of course, I completely understand that the priority for this is rather low, but I am still happy to look into providing a patch myself that would add these fallbacks if it would help expedite the whole process.

Sorry to bump a discussion a few months after it has already died down, but with the deprecation and removal of init-based supervised launching of gpg-agent, what's the recommended approach now to auto-start it?