True replacement for iPhoto

I'm not sure what version of Photos you have tested but the current version certainly allows you to crop simply by dragging a corner.

Arrangement of Albums is more or less identical between Photos and iPhoto - pretty much you decide what's in the Album so you decide if there's a gigantic one or whatever.

You can't buy Adobe Lightroom Classic outright. It is only available on subscription. LRC is more a replacement for Aperture, and the $10 or so per month, including Photoshop, represents good value compared to the cost of that app.

You're quite correct that - like iPhoto in its time - Photos is not for everyone.

As for recommending alternatives:

What kind of shooter are you? Pro? Seriously hobbyist? Family snapper?

Volume: how many images do you currently have in iPhoto? How many do you shoot per year?

Do you shoot Jpeg or Raw? What kind of camera? DSLR/Mirrorless? Point and Shoot? Phone?

Apart from ease of cropping, what features do you require? Do you want to sync with other devices?

Budget: How much are you willing to spend?

So you were referring to the icons in the library window. Okay. And you were referring to Events, not albums. I'm not sure what version of Photos you saw last, but I don't recognise the current version from your description. Maybe it's changed since you saw it last.

If that's all you need then use Graphic Converter. It's not really a library app, but the price is good, it has an excellent file browser and really good search.

An App like OnOnePhoto Raw will look a bit more like iPhoto, but for that volume, is it worth the price? Also you can get a once off licence for apps like Exposure X6 or CaptureOne. Only you can decide if they value proposition is what you need. I really think you can do what you want with a folder tree and Graphic Converter.

When I say gigantic album, I am talking about the size of the 'square' that you click on to get to an album in Photos.

Have you ever tried to use the sidebar in Photos to navigate your albums? There you have a neat list of folders with subfolders and the albums inside, like the sidebar in iPhoto. It is easy to take control of the albums by creating folders in the sidebar.

I never even use the Albums tab in Photos.

While viewing All Photos or any album you create yourself, you can switch to a view, where the thumbnails are showing the correct aspect ratio (not tiled and cropped like in the "Days"), with space to show the titles below the thumbnails. Just click the "Aspect" button to the left of the zoom slider:

Here's a screen recording of what léonie's referring to: