Insert Image Into Post Without Inserting Into Gallery

Note: The only threads I found on there were 2+ years old from WP 2.8 and 2.9 using Google searches.

Please tell me a simple way has been developed to insert an image into a post without inserting it into a gallery in the same post.

Please tell me that there is a simple way to use an image as the featured image without inserting it into a gallery in the same post.

Yes, I have tried uploading the photos into the media library rather than using the “upload/insert” feature on the “Edit Post” page. My gallery of 3 images still jumps to 4, and the picture that I want at the beginning of the post is still included in the gallery (so the picture is on the page twice).

I can’t believe I have to ask this, but is there a plug-in that adds a small button to gallery-images which allows me to “Remove the image from the gallery” without deleting the image from the entire frickin media library?

5 times I had to delete the image in question to remove it from the gallery. 6 times I had to upload the same image. At this point, I’m not sure what I even did to get it to work, but apparently something did.

^Sorry if I sound frustrated^ – I just find it horrible that 2 years later, such a simple problem still exists, and that I have to choose between using shortcodes and image links rather than a GUI option, or using a plug-in which will slow down my site ~.0001 seconds per page load.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this and provide assistance. I really do appreciate it.