Mine is used with some little bluestem ornamental grasses. It's easily 5+ feet in height in 3 years. It will sucker, but those caan be easily cut off if you don't want them. Hope this helps with your decision.

I have seen it used all the ways you described and I think the one I don't really like is when it is alone as a specimen. It looks better combined with other shrubs or underplanted. I think it also helps hide the suckers which do inevitably pop up.

Mine sticks up between two Acrocona spruces and is underplanted with bleeding hearts, astilbes, heucheras, alchemilla and various annuals.

Tiger eyes seems to be somewhat sprawling in it's growth habit. So a few years ago I decided I wanted a Tiger Eye tree. So in the spring I whacked it back to a stump and three shoots shot straight up about 6 feet that summer. Now I have a multistemmed Tiger Eye "tree" which, I have to say, I prefer over it's normal habit.

I have mine in a bed with other shrubs and my conifer collection- most of the things closest to it are blue- false indigo, silver fir, siberian iris clump...