Everyone organizes their large photo collections by date because 
1) this is how the pictures are taken 
2) this is how photo management programs group them on import typically 
3) you need to be able to get at the folders from outside of the application.

I cannot stress point 3 enough. This is critical for backup/recovery, passing to friends, etc.

What I'm talking about is that on import, f-spot should by default create folders such
    Pictures/2008-07-01
    Pictures/2008-07-05
This is the best starting point, since 90% of the time, each album is separated by day. The date should be pulled in from exif data. I actually organize my albums by year, then date + description. For example,
    Pictures/2008/2008-07-01 Birthday Party
    Pictures/2008/2008-07-05 Camping
This should be configurable as everyone has their own preferences here.  Yes, even the format
    Pictures/2008/07/01
    Pictures/2008/07/05 
should be supported.

The point is that editing the folder name from outside of f-spot should allow f-spot to pickup the changes and continue without failing or requiring to reorganize.

I'm not a big fan of Vista, but they have a really good program called Windows Photo Gallery. It is by far the best photo management application out there. In the left hand pane, you can organize by
- all photos
- recently imported (grouped by import groups)
- tag (by hierarchy)
- exif date (in hierarchy year > month > day)
- ratings
- folders (organized however you want)
on import, you can select how you want the folders organized.


F-spot can do
- all photos
- tag (by hierarchy)
- exif date (barely... only in top timeline pane... hard to pinpoint a year, month, or day)
- import/organize only in one way

Everyone has a digital camera. I don't get why there is such low priority given to this.