I thought this was crazy and egotistical, and how could anyone even want such a thing... until I googled the topic. From what I'm reading, it's not that rare (https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/97395/in-what-...).

In my mind, order serves no purpose, so requiring it is purely egotistical. That being said, overly egotistical people aren't exactly a rarity in the business world. And the minute _one_ person says it matters, other people start thinking it does too (because someone else might see it that way, and it reflects on them).

I had an idea that there is a business in making a "widget" that just applied a alphabetical order to a list of people in To:

I just could not figure out how to write code and distribute it in outlook ... not that I tried hard

Never heard of this here in Germany.

Also "cc" is rarely used where I worked and was mostly then used to inform the people in cc about the issue, they aren't required to do something.

should this have been "e.g." or is this really the main thing needed to respect hierarchy?

That is an interesting one, thanks!