Thanks for your response Sergei. I assumed there would be a much better solution. 
I may not be an untypical profile though (as your user base grows) - a software developer with close to zero web dev experience. I’ve watched all the tutorials (once) and the idea that empty elements will just disappear isn’t very intuitive IMO.
At the risk of sounding idiotic, why do you delete the empty columns? Other than optimisation, is there a technical reason? Doing so breaks the WYSIWIG and results in having to deal with the likes of me.
Cheers
Scott