Basic error in numerical sorting of album names

[winxi]

(12-01-2014 16:09)DavidL Wrote:  I'd prefer a blanket sorting solution as described above (personally I feel this should be the default with pure alphabetical character sorting as an option).

Although I see the point of your request, I'd personally prefer the pure alphabetical sort order.
I don't like software which tries to be super-intelligent, because this will always be appropriate for just a part of the users. The other part will most likely be badly surprised by unexpected results. iTunes is the prototype of such a software.
Your proposed approach will always involve some kind of guessing the sort order. Improving this guessing would require complex algorithms and it is definitely not done with just a single logical instruction.