Places are supposed to be the same as bookmarks.
Can you explain why you think they are different?

It is of course just me, but I think of places like something fixed -- trash, home, media. Thus big icons, labels are very useful -- they won't change over time too much, and there are only few. You could almost say they all are devices rather.

Bookmarks on other hand is something I work on -- when I finished, bye-bye with bookmark. So here is a lot of change, icons do not matter, alphabetic order does. This is about content.

In other words -- places are for me base points, from where I start _new_ work. Bookmarks are thing they I _continue_ to work from.

And as I mentioned above it would be useful to bookmark not only a directory, as before, but also a file. 

Currently Gwenview gives me problems from the beginning because I cannot set the layout "properly" -- I have to start from erasing everything from places (if they have to be used instead of bookmarks). Then there is a problem of places, because they are not visible (after I add them).

Don't get me wrong, but with current design I feel like in a too tight suite -- it is something I used to wear but it is hard to fit in. I have my ways to do my job and now there is more work than before.

Places/bookmarks would be quite clear separation for me and I would feel more comfortable that trash is not standing next to "my images (scanning)".

I found another disadvantage of replacing bookmarks with places when I ran... dolphin. Items I added in gwenview leaked to dolphin.

I know, in general it is a feature, but the problem is, you can't tell if user wants to set global or local place --.this means additional question while adding them. With bookmarks no such things -- they are local for gwenview only. 

This is a more general gripe with KDE software in general, and Places are now pretty well established and a more or less identical replacement for bookmarks. Places are always global, which IMHO makes sense. Not much we can do here.