I like to set the toolbar variable in my matplotlibrc file to None in order to reduce visual clutter. However, by doing this I'm unable to use any of the controls for panning and zooming.

I don't think it's necessary for these controls to require a toolbar to be displayed: the cursor changes according to what tool is being used, which is sufficient visual information to be usable without.

I'm happy to refactor the code (specifically, here and here), and then put in a pull request.
Would the developers be OK with this behaviour?