OP was told at enwp WT:MOS that this was undesirable, a concept which has been rejected many times over decades. Articles always give quantities in multiple units simultaneously (usually SI and US Customary, plus other systems as well where appropriate), and the ONLY question is which unit gets pride of place by going first, and which follows in parentheses -- some articles do it one way, some the other. It's absolutely absurd to think that giving the user a way to switch which unit comes first is somehow useful.

OK, so maybe that particular practice isn't a good idea. But there are lots things editors do to group and format parameters that ARE sensible, so automation shouldn't be imposing its own ideas.

I'm almost afraid to ask -- what does that mean?

No doubt the Germanic love of order and regimentation plays a role in that. More seriously... I should have been more specific: no such bot would ever be approved on enwiki. If you want you can have two modes for VE to operate in (reorder, don't reorder), or a button/checkbox you can select as you exit editing of a particular template. But as long as you continue to force the reordering of parameters like this, it'll be just one more reason VE isn't being accepted (on enwiki, at least).

cscott, you completely miss the point. There is no "inter-editor tension". There may very well be "Some editors definitely prefer a certain field ordering and argument layout", but on enwp at least, such editors are not allowed to impose that preference on articles at will, and certainly are not allowed to use a "the tool made me do it" excuse.

TheDJ's script does something different. Here's some js that does what we're talking about:

This may seem weird but I'd be happy with something that jumped me to a random starting date.

Honestly I won't be doing much page patrolling unless there's some way to start other than at the Newest or Oldest ends of the queue. I can't be paging endlessly to get to where I left off last time.