Chronological Photo Browsing

IView does this (now called Phase One Media Pro) It has a date finder that shows year, month and day and you can select to show all items. When you have any selection you can sort in to any order you want including date.

Lightroom will also do this, as well as let you narrow it down to which camera it was shot on, etc.

Aperture and iPhoto both have the calendar interface you describe that will pull up all photos from a given date. You can also see all photos in a chronological scrolling view, regardless of their storage location.

To use the calendar in iPhoto start at Search at the bottom of iPhoto. Click Search and when the Search box pops up click the little down arrow and select date for the new pop up. When to calendar shows use the 3 arrows at the top to get to any date you want, only days with photos will be active. You can also Scroll when you are in the Library at the top, using Events or Photos by grabbing the knob in the scroll bar, scrolling with a mouse wheel or two finger scrolling won't show the dates, you must grab the knob to scroll. Something else you may find handy with so many cameras being use is to make a Smart Album that will show only the photos taken with each camera or iPhone. Under iPhotos File menu make a new Smart Album with the rule "Camera Model is (select the camera or iPhone), now you can search for dates only that camera took photos by clicking on that Smart Album in the sidebar and then doing your search. Maybe this will help you get started learning how powerful iPhoto is when you get out of the habit of thinking of Folders or Evens to organize photos.