Indeed, the padding issue described in the other thread prevents me from achieving the behavior I need using custom collections.
Even if it didn't, recreating all the exact elements and layout using custom collections would be wasteful time-wise, given that almost everything needed exists as part of the List collection.
As I see it, I should make use of a custom collection to make something "custom", not to replicate the exact layout of the list collection, only to gain event handlers, which should exist anyway as part of the list collection.