Some screensavers cannot be configured

I'm going to second this. gnome-screensaver seems to be a huge step backwards so far.

I third this. In fact, there are a number of screensavers that without additional configuration either don't display anything or only the logo with some slight effect, very boring/ugly . It's not possible for mere users (ie. without admin rights) to change them, and changes are system-wide, as the gnome-screensaver included in 2.14 can't read screensaver themes from the user's home. Also considering that users currently can't disable specific themes, I suggest moving the .desktop files for these themes to a separate package and having only well-working (and non-broken) themes available by default. There should still be enough different themes left.

This applies to:

GLslideshow
Pictures galllery (requires a non-standerd folder to be more than blank screen)
Flipscreen 3D

and less to:
AntInspect (wants the current desktop, but looks quite -imho - atill quite interesting)

sorry for the comment spam, I accidentally hit post while switching between gnomescreensaver and epiphany)

This applies to:

GLslideshow
Pictures galllery (requires a non-standerd folder to be more than blank screen)
Flipscreen 3D
Mirror Blob
Slidescreen
Distort

and less to:

AntInspect (wants the current desktop, but looks - imho - still quite interesting)
GLeidoscope (same)
GLtext (has a working, if somewhat boring default- maybe ubuntu-theme it a bit?)

Note: the separation above is, of course, subjective and based on my personal taste.
It might seem like removing screensvers based on individual people's tastes is a bad idea, but I doubt a lot of people are fond of test images, though, and it might take away a little from dapper's polished feel. :) Also, it seems to fit the new "screensaver theme" paradigm in gnome-screensaver, have such potential security risks like screengrabbing user-addable (once that's possible) instead of forcing crippled versions on everyone.

The "Pictures folder" screensaver is also undocumented. How are we to know what it does and where to put our pictures?

Another issue with the new gnome-screensaver. I always use the random screensaver mode, but now I can't pick which screensavers I want enabled. There are several installed screensavers that I don't like or cause problems, and I don't want them included in the random rotation. Since these are bundled together in packages, I can't uninstall the ones I don't like without hacking source code. Much less user friendly than giving us simple configuration options.

Bobby Feagins: This bug has been marked as a duplicate of another bug and so comments generally will be ignored. I will copy your comments into Bug #22007 as you make a very good point :)

sadly this two last comments are duplicating a totally different bug, please dont mark random bugs as duplicates of others without checking.

Just want to inform about the non-GUI workaround: Put something like this in ~/.xscreensaver:
imageDirectory: /home/me/my_pictures

The setting will be picked up by xscreensaver-getimage-file which is called by glslideshow, flipscreen and friends.

This isn't a direct duplicate of the aforementioned bug.

One solution I've found works is to remove the .xscreensaver file when using the gnome screensaver. Under Gutsy, it just does the right thing and directs the screensavers to use the Pictures folder.