On somewhat the same topic, I've had to create custom columns
just to sort series-columns. If you sort ascending, undefineds go first. But if you sort descending, the series are in reverse order. So I sort series first, then sort a composite order checking that the column has a value to make them go to the top.
View Manager is a bit of a help. It's unfortunate that it can't do a sorting-only view and leaving the columns unchanged.