I have done a work around as well by using a dropdown column and naming the header row "header" then use "header" as one of my filters in the reports as well as color coding them.
I agree - There are a lot of opportunities from improving reporting, and this is one of them. The other is utilizing the summarized data for metrics and graphs on dashboards. Would love to see reports bring together content in the way they do with more formatting and presenting options, while also utilizing the data in the same way we would on grid sheets.