It seems that MC is sorting the files by when each one was imported, regardless of what sorting you apply in customize current view.
I think that MC is acting correctly, really. You want to see songs in the order that they were imported right? So things seem right.
However, I think that the smartlist rules and the "Customize current view" interface should be made into one, so that you can see the order in which the library is going to analyse and sort the files. Applying sorting at the moment is very haphazard and unpredictable. To be honest I never go anywhere near customize current view for sorting. I just use the Sorting presets on the outer menu and try to live with their logic.
Also, when you switch to "Album thumbnails mode" you are clearly saying to MC, "I want to see my albums by when they were imported" and the assumption should rightly be "in track order". A lot of people have spoken about this. But since this requires a change in MC's logic (making the files sort differently when in thumbnails view to how they would in file list view), I guess it counts as a new feature, and so I wouldnt expect to see anything until MC12 comes out.
For a while we couldnt even see album thumbnails below the tiles. We only had the files list. So, at least we've come some way. I just use defualt sorting down bottom for the moment, and use the other sorting methods on the tiles above.