There are a few feature requests on the forum that would hopefully meet your needs:
- Gallery/Kanban cards cover - Use the first image in the content as placeholder for missing cover
- Collection 2.0 which should smooth out the gap between query/set/collection. Team will demonstrate more in Town Hall: September 2026
- New relation type: Block is about rich-text for relation which is now property, hence blocks can be displayed in collection too
- Web design in support of layout or Homescreen from Legacy App which address fullscreen of image
- Grouping in Sets
Your needs resonate with a lot of fellow community members, upvote your required ones to get a better chance to be implemented.
For now,
- If you prefer folder like structure, use collection; if you prefer more presets, use query/set.
- Reuse the same image in multiple locations, so you get the benefits of all. Might take extra efforts though
- (Probably not the best but you can) Try using note layout, which would show blocks as title