When I long press any item it allows me to select multiple items (depending on a category it can be a song, album, artist etc), from there you get a popup and do what you want with the selection (play the selection now, create new playlist from selection, add to the curreny playlist etc.)

I agree, the default behavior depends on which category you have selected. My usecase is pretty simple, I usually just go to a directory I want and play everything from there (usually while driving) and skip what I don’t like, so I never really thought about it.

I don’t know if this supports what you want but give Phocid a try, you scan library manually (it’s not scanned every time you open the app) and it has folder view (the main reason I’m using it), so you don’t need to change the metadata. It replaced VLC for me, might work for you.