No, launchers are nothing at all to do with root. A launcher is just a perfectly normal app. My Pixel isn't rooted but I'm using Nova as my main launcher, have Apex installed for when I want to play around with layouts without changing my main setup, and have the pre-installed launcher in addition.
A launcher is simply an app that provides the interface for launching other apps. So a launcher app does 2 things:
1) it provides a set of "desktops" which can display app launcher icons and live tiles (widgets).
2) it provides the app drawer (mostly: there are a few odd ones that don't include this).
That's it. And as the launcher is just an ordinary app, you can use a different launcher to do these things in a different way, or with different options and capabilities. So if you want to experiment you can simply install a different launcher: it won't interfere with your current setup at all, it would just be available as an alternative (as I have Apex available for experimenting with - I've also just confirmed that Apex can also add shortcuts to its individual desktops).
So for your purposes you could if you wanted install another launcher, create a set of desktops in that, add shortcuts as you like, reproduce your current setup or try something different, and none of this would change your current setup at all. The "main" launcher would be whichever is currently set as the default action when you press the home button - any other can be launched like any other app, from the app drawer, but pressing home will take you to your current default one. If you decided the alternative launcher did everything you wanted, just make it the default. If you decide you don't like it, you can uninstall it.
(One caveat: the Microsoft Launcher has an integration with their wallpapers, so unless you are careful installing that will change your system wallpaper. You can change it back, of course, but most launchers don't do this so it's not something you expect to happen).
