Yes, if you collapse the nodes and then save the CR2, the collapsed state is saved into the CR2 and you don't need to do it again.  Of course if you just want to get rid of the dials entirely and the morph targets that the dials drive, which is not only convenient but easier on memory usage, you can look into svdl's spawncharacter.py script (DAZ figures only I believe):
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?username=svdl

This goes further than just hiding the dials, it consolidates all morph targets you've used into a single morph target and writes that to a new INJ/REM pose set; you can then get rid of all other morph targets and only load that one, and then save the result back to figures library as a very efficient CR2.  You may of course want to keep some morph targets separate e.g. expressions.

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