Clicking in the timeline is nice, assuming the mob you want to click is in there. When you have 4summons, 4 chars and like 6-8monsters, a lot of the stuff isn't actually displayed in there.
The timeline can display something like ~25 portraits in its row. Short of making an entire town attack you at once, I think that easily covers most encounters. For fights that have more than ~25 participants, an arrow key appears to the left and right of the timeline, allowing you to scroll to the hidden portraits when used.
In other words, every participant's portrait is displayed on the timeline.
