I think this is a good default, as long as one can opt to see the full URL.<p>A slightly better solution would be to still show the path at 50% grey or less. It might be hard to read, but it shows that <i>something</i> is there and that you’re not just on the homepage.
Wouldn't this get annoying when you go to select part of the URL? Hovering changes the text shown so you end up selecting different text than you wanted.