The order  of the view  is defined in the SCHEMA.XML for the list. If you create  your own list  (follow the example in the SDK to do this in a custom sitedef) you can change the order to use what you want. The default is ID but I’ve customized some lists where I either used the Title (to get alphabetical listings) or using a custom field. You can also combine the order using CAML so you can have primary and secondary. Just look at the <OrderBy> tag in the <FieldRefs> for the list.

If you want to control the order  at run-time rather than design-time you can add  the OrderedList attribute to the list  itself which specify that the option  to allow users to reorder items in the list is available on the Edit View page for the list.

You can do what you said in your last paragraph.... Add a new numeric
column called sort  Order, go back and assign a number to each link,
adjust the Sort in the settings to sort by Sort Order, and pick Summary
view for the list. It works fine. It is a manual process though and a
PITA to maintain if the list  changes a lot.