It would be beneficial if we could fix the color and text panels in place when they are opened, as well as allow for resizing.

Many people have more than one monitor, and many designers have one larger than a laptop screen. There is sufficient room to fix the panels in a particular position without having to move the mouse and click to open them. This would be especially helpful during exploratory design phases, when color/text style constraints must be applied but the workflow is hindered.

In essence, introduce the Illustrator behavior for managing panels, at least for some 🙂