Thanks much for the response, rick.ca. As you pointed out, MC is obviously very flexible with views, and the panes feature affords much of that flexibility. The grouping options, too, are handy, if also at times more than I want to tinker with. Still, the interface issues I noted are part of the reason I switched to iTunes years ago after a number of years with MJ/MC. Now, because my library is so large and MC is so great and larger libraries, I'm trying to switch back. I use it only for audio, so I'm desperately trying to strip away all the video and image handling features, useful as they may be for other users--I simply don't use them, though.
Anyhow, for searching, I always use the search box in the upper right-hand corner, both in MC and iTunes. Nested menus have no appeal to me, so that's not an option. I want one search box and one big list.
The large list view you pointed out is one I've been able to achieve with little fuss, but it leaves me unsatisifed because of a lack of grouping and the entirely small album art thumbnails. Plus, going fullscreen eliminates my all-important playlists from view.
I've attached an image of my view in iTunes to help illustrate what I was getting at in my original post. I have a feeling some clever Expression Editor coding could achieve this, but I haven't been able to make sense of the functions. For example, if MC is able to show just ONE album thumb when albums are grouped, shouldn't it also be able to display just ONE album or artist name, as in the example? (And is there a way to start a new line in the editor, or is that impossible?)
Also, a further note on the attached image--in MC, I'd lose something like 10 viewable tracks in the view I have in the example, solely because of the additional album title header. Given that I can see about 50 tracks when not split up like that, that's about a 20% loss of information, which to me is pretty significant (and why I'm mentioning it here).
Despite all the things I've tried to speed up iTunes, I've grown tired of waiting 60 seconds to add just a handful of files--MC is so much better in that regard (and in watching folders and handling smartlists tied to directories). I want to make this work...but the interface is just as important to me.
Thanks again for the reply.