I use MC for photos as much as anything, and it works well for me.
So do I! It works very well actually, and I choose to use it over most premier image management programs because it does what it does so well.
I thought about this again this morning... I think a lot of the reason people have requested some changes here has to do with how MC handles "clicking" and "double-clicking" and what it does to the files for each... In many programs (actually, the only ones I have any real experience with are adobe's software: elements, lightroom etc and google's picasa) there is no real concept of "playback". A file is just a file, and it may be opened/viewed/enlarged/edited.
In MC, if I double click a photo, it sends the list of photos to playing now, opens display view and plays them as a slideshow. This is modeled on behaviour for video and audio. And it works well in many ways. It makes creating a slideshow really easy, for a start and is great for flicking through/navigating your photos.
I think the problem (if there is a problem) is that there is no link between what is "selected" and what is being "Played". Say I'm flicking through my photos (next button, arrow key) in playback mode and I get to a photo I want to change a tag entry for. I can double click/escape/stop to get back to my main view. But now I have to look for the file that's "playing now" before I can do anything to it. Ie playback is not linked to selection.
It's an old thread, and I know it's been read before, but one possible solution is detailed here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=45759.0Keep the current playback implementation, but have an image "manipulation" mode. There are a few pics of the way Picasa does it in that thread. Lightroom provides similar functionality, but more features, of course. I can put up some screenshots if you've never used lightroom.
We are, of course, comparing MC to some of the big hitters in image management, so that mightn't be fair... but nevertheless this is a direction that might be pursued at some point
Cheers
Chris