In search mode, there is a progression object in the top left corner that shows: "#number of 24,040 events matched" until the search is complete.
Example:
I would like to use the same in a dashboard panel instead of "waiting for data..." OR at least as a token value that can be applied to the <title>.
No. I want is to show search progress in the panel window -- instead of the default "waiting for data..." message that appears before the results are completed. just as it does in event search mode. (see OP pic)
There's an example of what I think you want at https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/8.1.0/Viz/PanelreferenceforSimplifiedXML#eval