Hi and welcome to iLounge.
By default when listening to songs from an album directly (as opposed to through a playlist), they are ordered by track number if that information is available, or alphabetically if it is not. If you want to ensure that they are in the proper album order, you need to ensure that a track number is added in iTunes to each of the tracks.
When playing from a playlist, the songs will be in whatever sort order you had the playlist set to in iTunes. You can either sort a playlist by clicking on the column headings, or manually adjust the track order by dragging tracks up and down within the playlist (this will only work if it's not already sorted on another column heading -- click on the left-most column to return it to it's "unsorted" order).
As far as iTunes 7 goes, your mileage may vary. Some people have had problems with iTunes 7, particularly with the original version, but there are many (myself included) who have had no serious issues. Further, iTunes 7.0.2 has been released now, which fixes many of those previous issues that some were having.
So the short answer is that I wouldn't be afraid of trying iTunes. However, if this does not reflect the way you prefer to manage your music, you can find some other alternatives in our
Software Downloads section. iTunes is definitely the best solution for completely automated and seamless management and synchronization, but if you prefer a more
manual approach (ie, drag and drop), there are better solutions.