As someone who's been developing some really great and useful software for over 40 years, I'm just flabbergasted that this isn't an obvious feature to folks. When I go shopping, I don't take a bunch of pictures of what I want to buy, I bring a list, because it's really hard to beat an ordered list when it comes to pure information. If that list had thumbnail images, it would be even better.
In my Mac's Finder, I can view by icon, list, or column. I can't imagine what it would be like if the only view I had on my machine was icon view, which is roughly analogous to what we have here.
I know there are exceptions to this, but those exceptions are mostly covered by Channels' existing grid views. And yes, image grids are gorgeous, but this is basic navigation which should be flexible, and it's a problem that was solved many years ago.
Thanks.