Klingons are traditionally a standin in Star Trek for the Red Scare (60s era caricature of communism). What you have to understand is that the cold war of the era was simultaneously a display of might, but also fraught with spycraft. The Klingons had to represent both of these fears. You couldn't see what was happening on the other side of the iron curtain (cloaked).

Practically, they later created the technobabble rule that you had to drop your cloak to fire. That somewhat squares the circle regarding honourable combat, while still allowing Klingons to scheme.

People who discuss the contradictory and hypocritical nature of Klingon honor are without honor.

Pretty good discussion in my old post here: https://lemmy.ca/post/5380703

I think that "Balance of Terror" was the very first episode of Star Trek to feature ship to ship combat with a near peer adversary. The Romulans in that episode got cloaking technology because the screenplay was ripped straight from a WWII submarine movie.

I guess after that point the "submarine" tropes got established, because that style of combat was basically doctrine up until Star Trek (2009).

While the simple explanation that Klingons can get honor to mean whatever they want (see Worf's "discommendation" arc on TNG, for instance) holds some weight in explaining this, I like to think of Klingons as hunters, as much as warriors. When you hunt, you don't announce your presence to your prey. You hide until the moment when you pounce and attack. The cloak fits if you look at it this way, at least.

To be fair I bet it was developed to directly compete against cloaked Romulan craft

Nothing is more honorable than victory