Yeah, the UI is totally the weakest link, I completely agree. But you can always use the Expand all button to have all of the production buildings expanded, and only expand/collapse the resource tabs.
But maybe indeed one could make building nodes have horizontal layout instead of vertical. The thought didn't occur to me until now, since on mobile it kinda has to be vertical to fit everything.
About the research though, I never had the need to know what it will consume in advance since it ultimately doesn't matter. It always takes 1-5 of some resource per person assigned, so you just assign as much as you want and then go to the production screen to increase production if you are in the red.