iPhoto 7.1 - it works!

Yes, it took a little while, but Apple finally released a substantial update to iPhoto 08 which fixes the mds CPU usage going crazy on macbooks. Furthermore, you can now double click the top title bar to minimize (like all other mac apps), and when viewing photos (not events), sort from newest on top to oldest on the bottom. For the latter, I did have to reset manual sorting, and THEN select sort photos, by date, descending.