Agreed. Rather than dragging users kicking and screaming into an algorithmic timeline, why not play up the strengths of features they already built? Especially since lists allow you to target a user more directly - you can analyze the accounts in the list and get a rough estimate of what the category is - and could generate more revenue for them.
Twitter would be really really cool if you could have your lists and then swipe through them like you do with the "Moments" feature (which is awful)
Yeah, Twitter lists are what has kept Twitter sane for me. Coupled with a decent twitter client (I use TweetBot on iOS) that supports lists in an easy to use way.