Awesome to see real UX experimentation, and this elicited a strong response from me at first "oh I haaaaate that".

On further reflection, this is very interesting and I understand where the drag and drop interaction breaks down on long lists. Some additional UI affordances to communicate what's happening may make it intuitive and clear.

Things I'd want to experiment with if I was implementing this:

* A "wheel" effect where the items in the list grow slightly as they near the chosen item which stays locked in the interface at the center, popping into place at at each 'click'. Somewhat like the Price Is Right wheel flipper

* Making the interaction entirely scroll based once I click. Setting the item in place can be done by any other click or keypress, and cancelled with the escape hotkey. My interaction is pick, scroll, click (without having to aim back at the thing I just placed by scrolling)