John,

Totally agree with you, and so glad you submitted this.  I just put it in the queue to get it fixed.  I feel this is more of a bug since we already show the registrant list in the UI by last name, just not the attendance report.  I'm assuming this is what you're asking about right?

Tom, thank you for bringing this to my attention.  This is not a good user experience, I agree, and have put this in the development queue for next week! 

Deborah, we are completely revamping memberships and this is included! 

Mark, 

This is coming, you will be able to select fields like {{first name}}, {{event.name}}, etc! 

In the queue to add this permission next week!