You may know this, but from column view you can use the toolbar or a keyboard shortcut to do 'Arrange By', which is not exactly a sort but similar. (It splits files into groups based on intervals of the specified property, and the groups are sorted, but the files aren't sorted within the groups.) Alternately, it's not exactly the most streamlined option, but you can change 'Sort By' from the window that pops up from Cmd-J.