Yes, you are right, that would be way to many panels. Even hundreds of
cells filled with controls isn't it a bit too much overweight?
It's an overview of all pages of a day's production of our newspaper:
16 regional issues, each between 28 and >70 pages...
Each page is represented by a button with a status color (a "LED" bitmap
at the moment) with tooltip and context menu to access some workflow
functions.
Anyway, I just remembered a screenshot I saw with bitpim, a free wxpy
application. It may be what you're looking for. You can pull the
source code as inspiration if it is what you need I guess:
Hm, that uses a classical grid. Perhaps I could do that, too.
The predecessor of my actual app is written in Perl/Tk and highlights
some columns with a background color. My wxPy app should look as similar
as possible, besides looking better. 
Hey, don't tell me there's something in Tk that isn't possible with wx!
What a shame!
Best regards,
Henning Hraban Ramm
Südkurier Medienhaus / MediaPro
Support/Admin/Development Dept.