Kovid,
Your "display: none" suggestion does not work properly. It creates the same problems I pointed out about the use of "visibility: hidden" in this thread
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=105047
These properties work when you create an ePub file but the TOC is not linked to the proper pages when building a MOBI file. It looks like you have a bug in there somewhere.