Eh? I backup my data to a NAS using a scheduled task each week.
You have a problem how I organise pictures but if someone asked me if they could see pictures of my eldest's 2nd birthday, I can find it in seconds. Which is what viewing pictures all about - organisation.
I don't mind using a cloud platform to do the same, mainly for the reliability but if doesn't allow the same functionality and/or it's clunkier than I will happily go back to my original way that has worked for the past 15 years. You forget my original post was just about an iPhone annoyance that I have lived with ever since they came out.
Yes I do the same as you, for my professional images taken on my Mirrorless/DSLR.
HOWEVER for mobile phone photos, that's pointless.
Yeah I can find ANY image on my iphone, PC, ipad, mac in seconds also - because in the photos app,oddly enough, its all arranged by date also -
the point is, it already does this automatically for you so there is no point in doing it again yourself.
Give me any date & exactly the same you can just jump to it by year, month etc, a hell of a lot faster than navigating traditional directories - also I can do this on my phone, pc or ipad etc anywhere, any time - it just works very well, much better than trying to navigate folders on a phone as well - thats a ball ache on a mobile device.
That's whats making me pull my (little remaining) hair out here - your saying iphotos (+icloud for non photo files), is clunkier than using directory structures, thats why im in shock and debating this with you, because its much slicker & heckin easier, and it syncs and works across all devices as well - your only slower if your not used to it - and yeah sure you can export the photos from a certain date to a folder if you like, but why, its already sorted and there for you, anywhere, anytime.
I know how to store images, my previous life I was in I.T. working on databases - Iv been a full time photographer now for 5-6 years - I got the whole data back up and image store/use sorted out otherwise id be wasting my time