[douche]

Except when you have to wrap it in parentheses and tack a .ToList() onto the end of it, or use something outside the subset that the query syntax supports, it starts looking considerably more ugly than chaining the functions together.

[WorldMaker]

The obvious answer is don't wrap a good query in parentheses, use a second line:

    var somestuff = from x in someList
                    where x.Id > 7
                    select x.Name;

    var somestuffList = somestuff.ToList();

For what it is worth, I personally consider ToList() harmful. I've done a lot of LINQ performance work and the first place I start is with a project-wide search for ToList and start to delete and/or replace calls to ToList to things more appropriate. List is more often than not the wrong data structure for a query result and I've seen too many people use ToList as a debugging crutch without understanding its performance impact.