I know PANOSE info in fonts is mostly useless, but if it is filled in with more than just the basics, it's somewhat useful.
If PANOSE selection was similar to weight/width selection, it should be fairly easy for a user to create a view that selects fonts with useful PANOSE info. Something like "Family Kind" between "2 - Latin Text" and "4 - Latin Decorative" and all other fields greater than "1 - No Fit" should give you all the fonts where the author seems to have tried to fill in the values.