You can always change the way photos are displayed (in the view menu), but iPhoto imports into dated folders with assigned roll dates. Something about making working with photos easier for the masses. There's other photo software that can give you absolute control during the import process, but iPhoto is not necessarily one of those, although you can drag a batch of photos, that are not imported yet, to a custom album, and iPhoto will import, placing those photos in your selected album immediately. of course, dragging from your main library to any album can always be done within iPhoto.