Factory Joe has an excellent thought about rewiring the UI of the OS X font explorer from it’s functional interface (which depends on knowing what you want in advance) to an exploratory one where (where you can find what you really need).
It’s a very different way of defining the problem you are trying to solve and naturally leads to a very different conclusion. Personally, I see the UI choices as a matter of context. You have a smaller number of fonts on your personal computer (by an order of magnitude) than what you can explore online.
Why not use the most appropriate interface for each: a functional interface to tweak the details for the smaller set of known items and the exploratory mode for the broader unknown. Giving the user the best way to accomplish each task is the real goal.