also, with icon view on in the current finder window, go into Finders preferences.
tick the box "show icon preview", and also, move the slider all the way up to 128x128, giving you huge thumbnails. now check the box "view all folders like this". now, whenever you select 'icon view' in a finder window, it basically gives you this wonderful view of thumbnails. for quicker browsing, switch back to column view.