Strongly suggest making the feature optional so it does not interfere with custom orders.
I waste a lot of time putting things in the right order. Sometimes it will even mess up the order that I had already arranged. So I have to rearrange it again. Its order is random. You would think that it would either: A) do it alphabetical by default or B) put it at the bottom of the list. It does neither by default. It is random.
I think some people missed the part where it sounds like OP says this would only be the initial default and that the custom weight should still be able to override it. And I agree, it would be a good default. I also saw someone mention it as a toggle, that'd be nice too
There are some reasons why I wouldn't like this (in which case I would use the position/weight function in the navigation section when editing an article). Otherwise being in alphabetical order by default would generally be pretty useful.
If it's a toggle, I'm fine with it, but the only possipility, I am strongly against. I'd rather prefer ordering the articles myself based on what each folder needs.
I think what you may have meant is "automatically be listed alphabetically". If so, yes, I whole heartedly agree.
I'm not exactly sure about what function you are looking for, but personally I think it is hard to find and hard to get a grasp of the article lists. Maybe too many functions is pressed into one view? Both arranging in a TOC and finding the articles you want to edit.
If you use the Position, it works just fine. I would not want it to be automatic unless it was a feature that you had to turn on OR if it only did the automatic rearrangement if the position was not set. Otherwise, I'd have to fix my order every time I saved a new article.