Hi,
I think your Filter chars are very big number. That's why it occupies a bigger space than the results table. As every cell can hold one char at a time, the moment you want to see the list of filter chars, the list is going much down in the excel, Am I right?
Why don't you keep those chars in Free chars too along with filters? Then, you can simply drill down by particular char by right clicking on the results table area.
I appreciate your current workaround. Unless you try to accomodate those fields in other way in your query, it will be cumbersome for you to handle them.
Regards,
Suman