I think it would be really cool if it were possible to combine the layer symbology from the legend (the patch) with a table. If this is already possible somehow, please let me know!
A recent example where this would've helped my workflow is when I was creating a map for upcoming projects. Each project was identified with unique symbology and I had a table displayed on the map with fields for project name, budget, and description. In order to avoid having to also have a legend that listed the same project name, I ended up using excel to create a table with screenshots of the symbology for each project and then took a screenshot of that table to insert into the map as an image.
Here's an image (info blacked out):
