I notice the term "Dorian" hasn't been used yet. It does help explain a few things.

Modal turnings aren't that helpful if you wish to distinguish between major and minor. That's the point of them.

I use it (and similar) a lot but the many traditional tunes that play along a minor first and major seventh (Amin and Gmaj to give an example) work far better in standard tuning anyway and if you want a drone, try a drop bass tuning such as drop D or (through my combination of laziness and not boring people by tuning between songs) drop E by fitting a capo 2nd fret, five strings across and play as D