I also remember being able to see the contents of an album in its entirety so that you could select images to view.  Viewing an album one image at a time in slideshow format is clunky and annoying, especially if the album is large.  You should be able to locate the set of pix you want to take a closer look at by viewing the entire album's thumbnail contents, like you used to be able to do!  And then download the image(s) you want.