Splash Page

At this site, I was asked to create a ‘Splash’ page and have….the method used was:

Create a custom Page Template (the Splash Page) and custom CSS.
Assign Page Template to a blank page named Splash
Set Splash to the Front Page

The splash Page Template uses a JavaScript redirect to what is now the ‘Home Page’ (/welcome/).

This all works well…BUT, would it be better to use a redirect in .htaccess to redirect all root traffic to the Splash Page (which would not be set as the Front Page then) and then use the JavaScript redirect to redirect to home? The issue is I want the site Home Page ‘/’ to actually be the Home Page and not be site url/welcome/.

Any thoughts? Please do not suggest plugins, I will code this.