Not entirely true. From the manual:
panelLoad (string filename)
Loads the panel content in .csv format from the given file. Only editable or button cells are affected.
panel (string filename, int color, int size)
Opens a control panel with the structure and content from a .csv spreadsheet file. etc
Those definitions should be for all intents and purposes synonymous, unless the intention is to obfuscate. What's more, replacing panel() with panelLoad() results in nothing, no visible panel, so is a less useful, in practice, function than panel().
It is the panelSave() that is removing the formatting in the csv file.
I've moved on in the meantime to using the file_content() function and a configuration file.
