I don't use iTunes for managing the files. I do that manually. Though on the Mac you can greatly extend iTunes capabilities using AppleScript, including the ability to rename files.

In iTunes prefs I turn off the options for it to manage file locations (there are two related items for this on one pref pane). but as far as browsing your music collection, it's pretty much the best and cleanest. I only started using it full time after version 7 came out. revious versions didn't have the ability to properly group things by artist-albums and sub-sort by various methods - the one I use it date.

I use the second view which shows artwork on the left, then I click the ALBUM header a couple of times till it says "Album by Year" - that gets you everything sorted alphabetically by Artist and then each album within each artist sorted by year. There will be one thumbnail per album with all its tracks listed next to it on the right.

For doing filtering you can optionally use smart playlists, header sorting or the browse feature which is accessed with the "eye" button on the bottom right. Browse is in fact a quick-filter. Click on the filter items and everything else vanishes from the displayed list. I've never used it in Windows, but it runs pretty well on my 1.5GHz PowerBook and even faster on my 1.6GHz Dual Core Mac mini. I even use it over a Remote Desktop (Apple's VNC) to manage the stuff on the mini from my notebook.