I am taking you up on your suggestion that we re-post items
that got no response while you were away. I suspect the real reason
I got no response is because there is currently no answer, but it's
worth a try...

In using Area Contents web parts I find the ordering of subitems
unpredictable when grouping is used on the subareas. Unpredictable
as in there is no apparent connection between the ordering I do on
the subarea and the way the items appear on the Area Contents. Let
me give an example...

I have Subarea1 with Group1. I have 5 items, Item1, Item2, Item3,
Item4, and Item5. Now, since I want to control their ordering, I go
into my manage contents, portal listings, manage ordering and set
them to appear as below:

Group1
Item2
Item4
Item1
Item3
Item5


Now on the parent area page, the Area Contents web part shows
appears as follows:

SubArea1
Item2
Item4
Item1
Item3
Item5

All is well with the world. Now, I break the subarea listings into
two groups, Group1 and Group2. Item 2 and 4 remain in Group 1 with
ordering 1 and 2 respectively. Items 1, 3 and 5 are assigned to
Group2 with ordering 1,2,3 respectively. On the subarea page I now
have

Group1
Item2
Item4

Group2
Item1
Item3
Item5

So on the parent page I might expect to see what I had before, items
2,4,1,3,5. Or perhaps even items ordered 2,1,4,3,5. But no. Here
is what I actually get:

Subarea1
Item4
Item1
Item3
Item5
Item2

Now, if I go in and make changes to the ordering in the subarea, it
will change the ordering on the parent, but I can find no way to
predict the result of my changes such that I can reliably control
the order on the parent.