First, I'd like the smartlists to be "sticky," that is, stay put where I place them on the left side pane, and not arrange themselves by alphabetical order. I'd also like to group them with section headers that I can name for each group of smartlists.

Here'a a neat feature for smsrtlists. Say the criteria for being in a smartlist is to have both A and B. When I drag the item out of that smartlist, the criteria are reset, that is they no longer apply to the item. So if "prospect" was the criteria, and I drag the contact out of the "Prespect" smartlist, then the attribute of "Prospect", (perhaps a keyword) would be removed from the contact. Same thing when adding to a smartlist. The attribute is applied to the contact. Smartlists would have this feature only if a setting was ticked in the Smartlist properties dialog. Otherwise the samrtlist would be like the ordinary lists we have now.