I helps me, because I always fat-finger Command-W close tab instead of Alt-W copy region to selection in Emacs, and it closes my tab. I can get it back when I run Emacs under screen!
iTerm2's Tmux integration (native tabs and panes backed by a tmux session) lets you have your cake and eat it too it's my standard dev flow for remote or local work. Just add -CC when firing up tmux within iTerm2.