The Appearance panel looks somewhat similar to Layers, but it differs in many ways, excluding several QOL methods to deal with large amount of items.

For example, one can Opt/Alt-click a bracket next to a layer or a group in Layers to collapse unfurl all the children within it.

Sure, Layers miss just a button to do it as well, and there is a request about it here at UV (http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/42451084) — but Appearance just don’t have any method to collapse the items (and these do unfurl all the time — take a look at this bug report: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447/suggestions/49257335)

The panel just doesn’t have a root item anyway to use the same approach as Layers, since it allow only one level of displayed hierarchy, and nested appearances are navigated in a completely different manner — with double-clicks on 'Contents' and 'Group' rows...

Please don’t force us to scroll through the panel and collapse these one by one.