First of all, you don't have to go back. Second of all, being perfect is a pretty high bar for any software - can you mention any on this list, or even commercial ones, that have no flaws or bugs, or could not be better? Third. I've used it since it was part of Navigator, and I have never lost any data. Without being tech-support for Thunderbird, I might think that you have somehow installed either a different version of Thunderbird, which makes a new user-folder. Your data might still have been there.

Sorting is done the same way in Outlook and Thunderbird, by clicking on the subject you want to sort it by. How you couldn't do that, is beyond me...

But, as I said at first - you don't have to go back. I guess you felt like making this post about complaining - something I don't think that any software in this list (or beyond this list) could be above...