It is currently a pain to use an OxyPlot.WinfowsForms.PlotView with a transparent background: it throws if you set its BackColor to transparent. To avoid this, it is necessary to set the ControlStyles.SupportsTransparentBackColor style to true on the PlotView; however, Control.SetStyle is protected, so consumers must resort to reflection or extending PlotView to do so. This could be done in the PlotView constructor without - as far as I'm aware - any repercussions: could this mess with performance/interactivity?

I can see no reason why we shouldn't support transparent backgrounds: they would be easy to abuse, but no doubt have their uses as well, and this limitation is little more than an irritation at the moment.

See #1670 for more discussion.