How to enable traditional window placement/ geometry positioning

I have some remote X programs that all worked nice with 12.04. But in 14.04 there is now the following change.

One program (emacs) calls another (gs) with a certain geometry specification. The idea is to make this other window visible atop of emacs.

The geometry-information is no longer taken directly (as in 12.04). Instead, the shading border around the window is now added to the placement. Is there a way to tell Unity that a specifc app should be handled in the "olde" fashion?

When opening that (gs) window, it is placed below the current window. So it remains invisible. Ideally, I would like it to be placed on top - that is above emacs, and even to stay on top. Or almost. In 12.04 it worked reasonably enough. Is there a way to tell Unity that this window should stay on top? Maybe this has something to do with a maybe changed focus policy.

So far, with wmctrl -r ghostscript -b add,above, I can make a currently existing window "on top". However, I would like to apply this also for future windows. Similar to the "Staysontop" property of traditional window managers.

So far, I have apt-get install compiz-plugins to get Window Rules. And there I have added title=ghostscript as matches under Above. (I got the title from the + grab option). But still ...