Transfer photos back and forth to OS X WITHOUT*** iPhoto or iTunes?

I googled to no end, searched Apple support forums endlessly and you know what? Not a single simple answer can seem to be given without being redirected to something that simply does not answer THIS very specific question.

Is it, or is it not possible to quickly transfer photos DIRECTLY *FROM* and *INTO* the Camera Roll WITHOUT iTunes or iPhoto?

Simple question yes? lol. NOPE.

Reason why I ask can be simply described in short:

iTunes 11.0.2, running iPhone iOS 6.1;

Clicking "Photos" from my iPhone via iTunes, gives me ONE single option; "Sync photos from". Tried keeping it real simple. Make a folder on the desktop called iPhone Photos just for quickly transfering photos back and forth and chose to synch from that.

18 photos to test. Just crap from the internet. Nothing major. Know what it does?

For one, it takes 3 minutes or so to sync 18 whole photos, which is stupid but whatever. But here's the BEST part, none get sent to my Camera Roll, oh no, it makes TWO entirely new folders under it in my iPhone. One being the one I made on my desktop, and the other is called Photo Library, and get this, BOTH of these have the same 18 pictures lmao. Yup. Why? Oh who cares at this point. I really just do not care. Apple. All that needs to be said.

And as for iPhoto. It's just an unnecessary useless program I have no intentions of ever needing. Why? I keep a crap load of various types of photos in organized folders in my Finder, and iPhoto likes making sure it takes 3x longer to do that. It really just does.

Now back on point. What happened to the good old friggin days when all you had to do was DRAG AND DROP?!?!?! I legitimately am getting cancer from pondering this question.

Is there not a way to simply drag from Camera Roll somehow to the iMac, like say a specified folder. And Vice Versa from the iMac straight to Camera Roll?

A nice workaround to get FROM Camera Roll TO iMac specified folder is "Image Capture" which does exactly just THAT. Quickly and painlessly transfer STRAIGHT FROM AND TO wherever. This is ridiculous. At this point, I'd pay 50 bucks for a simple app to quickly drag and drop from and to Camera Roll and bam. Done.

Sorry for the book, but this is getting ******** trying to get an answer to this and thought I would deem it necessary to be as descriptive as humanly possible.

Looking for simple answers if possible, but at least descriptive. Thanks.