Why is it clunky? What does that mean?
There is a tree view control but it is not used much, has little documentation and often raises issues because it is an ActiveX control. Some networks don't allow them to be distributed. If I wanted an actual file explorer I'd use the msofiledialogfilepicker or msodialogfolderpicker from within Access. If I wanted something like a tree view control I'd probably do what you did, especially if the list items are just db data and not hard disk files.
The more we hear silence, the more we begin to think about our value in this universe.
Paraphrase of Professor Brian Cox.