to add on to your question, is there even any way to import photos from an iOS device directly into a new/existing album in my library? Every time I have to import the photos, then goto the smart album, "Last Imported", then select all & use the menus to spawn off the new album I want.
It also means if there are 30 new photos detected from my iPhone by my Photos but these 30 photos are intended to go into 3 separate albums, I have to repeat the process 3 times. & then again, it's not even reliable that by the time I imported my 2nd batch of 10 photos, the first 10 that were imported, will be purged from the "Last Imported" smart album (in other words, I've to conscientiously identify my 1st 10 & next 10 photos from within the "Last Imported" if they were destined for separate albums).
Has it been this way since the era of iPhotos? Or did Apple just start punishing us from the moment they launched iCloud Photo Libraries?