Redefining the term and then claiming that what someone else meant by it is not in line with what you meant with it is ... well it is messed up.
They are sandboxed, but rightly Gimp has access to your whole filesystem because that is what people who install it expect.
Of the 30 apps I have installed via flatpak only 6 have access to the whole FS or my entire home directory (Zotero=home, Krita=host, KolorPaint=host, Inkscape=host, Gimp=host, Geeqie=host), and of those 6 only 1 (Zotero) of them seems like it may be fine without it.
Having access to the host FS in no way mean to me that Geeqie is not "sandboxed". It just means that what I would expect is the case. If you want to change it, go open up flatseal and change it.