Could you explain how this is useful?

This seems like the kind of option that could easily trip up users who open a file setup someone else and don't know to un-hide the collapse button, which would be especially bad if the button is hidden when collapsed.

@Campbell Barton (campbellbarton) see VIEWLAYER_PT_freestyle_lineset_image_border in D10505

This option is useful for corner cases where pannels with only headers are used to make alignment match.

Still not following, can this be shown with a before/after image that clearly shows the improvement?

In D12185#315642, @Campbell Barton (campbellbarton) wrote:

Still not following, can this be shown with a before/after image that clearly shows the improvement?

this Image Border subpanel, when it is a label it doesn't align well with following subpanels
a solution is to make it an empty subpanel like below, but now the collapse button is useless

with the new option

I don't think hiding the collapse indicator is the way to go. It can be abused and misused (shortcuts to open/close still work).

In D12185#315929, @Iyad Ahmed (iyadahmed2001) wrote:

this Image Border subpanel, when it is a label it doesn't align well with following subpanels
a solution is to make it an empty subpanel like below, but now the collapse button is useless

There is no content in these subpanels. Why can't this be a simple column heading "Select by" on the left and a column of checkboxes on the right ?

col = layout.column(heading="Other", align=True)
col.prop(view_layer, "use_pass_emit", text="Emission")
col.prop(view_layer, "use_pass_environment")
col.prop(view_layer, "use_pass_shadow")
col.prop(view_layer, "use_pass_ambient_occlusion")

In D12185#316334, @Pablo Vazquez (pablovazquez) wrote:

I don't think hiding the collapse indicator is the way to go. It can be abused and misused (shortcuts to open/close still work).

In D12185#315929, @Iyad Ahmed (iyadahmed2001) wrote:

this Image Border subpanel, when it is a label it doesn't align well with following subpanels
a solution is to make it an empty subpanel like below, but now the collapse button is useless

There is no content in these subpanels. Why can't this be a simple column heading "Select by" on the left and a column of checkboxes on the right ?

col = layout.column(heading="Other", align=True)
col.prop(view_layer, "use_pass_emit", text="Emission")
col.prop(view_layer, "use_pass_environment")
col.prop(view_layer, "use_pass_shadow")
col.prop(view_layer, "use_pass_ambient_occlusion")

Thanks Pablo will do so, only first panel doesn't have content, other panels have