Re: Storing an ordered list

 This is a good idea.  Then you can add a scheduled process to read through these values and turn them back to integer values on a regular basis (sort of a reindexing) to keep your numbers from becoming small enough that you start experiencing round off problems.  Perhaps you could add a trigger that says if the value entered into the order field is going out to too many decimal places, it renumbers everything. to keep the values clean.  Or better yet, add a stored procedure you call to reorder the elements that decides how to do it for you so you can easily rewrite the implementation without having to change the application.

Just some ideas...