Treating Child Devices as their own entity in Device list

[JCC]

Found this thread Can I display device children in the main device list? but bringing it to feature requests and presenting a use case:

When looking in "Rooms" we see child devices listed nicely in the "room" they belong, not by parent device that provides the functionality.

When I'm in Devices list, either in list (my preferred) or grid format, child devices are listed inside the parent device.

I've got a number of relay switches that operate different things -- the CHILD device is what I'm always looking for -- Back Yard Color Landscape lights or Front Yard White Landscape lights, not "Garage Relay 1"

Request is to have a mode (or by default) that allows children to present in alphabetical order in their own right. My thought would be treat each child as its own entity and list in order, with a "Group by Parent" check box (that defaults to unchecked) next to the list/grid selection. Checking that box would result in the current behavior.

[FriedCheese2006]

The counter argument is that the UI does trigger a realization that "these things are tied together". What happens when a user forgets that a particular device is a parent, removes it, and suddenly 30 other devices are gone?

I do recall that there was a request and discussion from HE devs about allowing the search feature to not include the parent device when the search criteria would return just a child.