Yes! I know it sounds silly, but when working with a small screen laptop, it's caused a problem for one of our editors. Just wanting to nip it in the bud if possible!
I doubt there is such a way to lock the pan slider. The only workaround I see is to make the height of the audio tracks that small so the pan slider doesn't appear at all.
I'm not aware of a way to lock the pan function either. The track pan envelope can be be hidden, 'View> Files> Audio Envelope', or the P shortcut key. Otherwise, as Marco stated, minimizing the track's header, hides it.. so can putting it in a track group.