the type of component that would explode to form a solid would be one that cuts an opening. So pin pointing those particular components and their influence to explode would be necessary before outer shelling.
Using the outliner and selecting, right click exploding would be the quickest. Grouping and naming such geometry would help (you would have to pass the required attributes through of course). like plates with a set of holes would be grouped to Ax_"name" like Ax_plate1, Ax_plate2....so easy to reference
the "A" would be a place holder, "x" for explode
I believe you would need some kind of naming convention, for a ruby script to seek out and destroy
once you have establish a simple method, then you can build a ruby script, or course with help from the gurus.
EDIT: just realised that nesting down more than one level is causing your problem as you wrote, However the same principle applies.... use outliner, open(+) to require nested group, can use control to select more than one,right click to context menu....explode