Being able to sort the What's New section by artist would be fantastic. Maybe even do it the way deviantArt does, grouping things into folders.

This is a good idea. My personal preference would be to also be able to toggle NSFW on or off from the login screen, so the adult work never even loads when you sign in. I run a browser in private mode at work, which means cookies aren't saved and such, so whenever I log into FA, I have to hit the SFW button immediately.