I have an LG Extravert, it's a touch-screen but not a smart phone. And if yours is like mine, there's no way to access pics and stuff stored in the phone memory via the USB cable.
But if you install a memory card, you can transfer all the pics to the card, and when you plug the phone into your PC via USB, you can access the pictures on the card. I was doing what you're doing and emailing pictures from my phone to my email, then downloading 'em to my PC that way, but when my next cell phone bill came, I had $50 worth of "data" charges, 'cause I don't have a data plan so I pay per megabyte. Fuck that. I bought a $20 card that holds 4gig, problem solved.
I bought the card at the Verizon store, and the guy there installed it, transferred everything from the phone onto it, and changed my settings for me to store things on the card in the future. It's worked like a charm ever since.