You make a good point with your drill down capabilities which I've had an issue with when it come to places. The latest FTM 2012 updates are doing better parsing but still have some work.

The current structure, delimited by commas, for US locations is along the lines of: (specific location), (city), (county), (state), (country).

Since we're dealing with places of birth, school, marriage, work, and burial, I'd like to be able to see all locations in a city or county. For example, if I drill down on North Carolina -> Mecklenburg -> Charlotte, I'd like to have an option between people associated with that city AND locations such as cemeteries, hospitals, schools, businesses, etc.

FTM isn't there yet but seems to be making progress (I hope). I'm also having the same issue with sources and source citations and wanted to bring up this somewhat related issue.