The reason for the game not sorting by type does have its reasons:
- items are not categorised by types as they are in other games. Tooltips say what items do, loot has rarities and stats, but other than that, an item is an item. In essence players can 'use' every item in several ways - even loot.
- categorisation by type also inherently reveals too much about the usefulness of certain items. Just like a Quest Item tab would destroy much of the obscurity in the game and automatically 'solves' puzzles in the game, categories would do the same for several other aspects of the game such as crafting. You are supposed to try this and find it out yourself, or use the crafting manuals to learn more.
Depends on how you do the categorization. If you do it from an internal perspective of the game, then you would sort based on generic aspects (weapons, armor, food, tools, scrolls, books, etc...) which would not provide any advantage in terms of spoilers.
Now if you sort by external aspects (quest items, stat items, unique items, legendary, etc...) then you run a high risk of spoiling some aspects of play.
That way you get a little more reasonable ease in managing your inventory, but no spoilers. An orange for a quest will still sort as food, the same as a sword as a weapon, etc...
