I know exactly what you mean when it comes to Amarok. The layout in particular annoyed me. I'd follow instructions to give a similar appearance in Amarok 2, but even with it looking like 1.4, it didn't have the same functionality (clicking a column title to sort, for example).
I've been using MPD for awhile now, but recently I stumbled on
Clementine which is a fork of Amarok 1.4. It's still very young, but is usable and looking good so far.