In this case, would be nice to have something like…
$item(‘#aaa’).scrollto() 
Yes, a → scrollBy(), or a —> scrollTo(), will not work in this case.
ScrollBy(), which is dedicated to the page itself (window) and scrollTo() which can control elements on the page → like repeater ITSELF, but still not capable to scrollTo() elements → INSIDE-REPEATER.
A nice idea for Wix to integrate such a function for the repeater.
I see your workaround as a simple solution, but it’s not the only one.
The hard one would be to generate your own specific repeater, inside an HTML-Component or CUSTOM-ELEMENT.
Not long ago there was already a post about such an opertunity you can create by your own.
The repeater-API should get this additional function to be able to interact with the scroll-wheel of the mouse (to be more precise → the ITEMS ← inside repeater should get such a functionality) → this would make it much easier to interact with the repeater.
QUESTION: What we are doing all the time inside an repeater? → exactly → SCROLLING!
The following post will give you maybe the right idea of how to generate your own REPEATER…