iterate visibility layers and turn them off(seems to make a difference for performance when running batch ops on scenes). Haven't profiled so who knows, but things that crashed now don't. Practical heuristic 🙃

maya_layer-vis.py

import pymel.core as pm
layers = pm.ls(type="displayLayer")

for item in layers:
    if 'defaultLayer' in item.name():
        pass
    else:
        current_viz = item.getAttr("visibility")
        print(item, current_viz)
        if item.hasAttr('visibility'):
            item.setAttr('visibility', False)
            # for SOME reason, the button doesn't update itself when you change the layer value, lolll
            #i thought this flipped that but now it's not working, will check back on never, maybe wrong attr name
            #item.layerButton(edit=True, layerVisible=on)
            item.setAttr('visibility',0,0)