We can customize technology all we want in this scenario, right? I'd get one of those huge conveyor belt systems that dry cleaners use. Have all my fabric ironed, hung along the conveyor belt roughly grouped by color, and assigned a number. The number and a picture of the fabric, along with some sort of tagging descriptor system (color, whether it's multicolored, pattern size, pattern style, how much of the fabric I have left, etc) is entered into a computer program so I can search by the parameters of what I'm looking for. So, say, my pattern calls for 2 yards of blue fabric with a small print. I'd be able to search the tags "blue", "2+ yards", and "small print" to get a list of all my fabric that meets all 3 of those requirements. It'd also have an exclusion function so that if my pattern would look okay with a blue/green combo fabric but not a blue/pink combo, I could add in blue fabrics with multiple colors but exclude any that are tagged with "pink" as a descriptor.
It'd be the best of both worlds, in my opinion. When I just want to browse my fabrics for inspiration, they'd all be hung right there for my enjoyment but when I'm hunting for one specific fabric, I won't fall in love with one that's like 3/4 of a yard when I need 1 1/2 for my pattern, because I'd only see fabrics in my fabric searching computer program that fit what I need.