I've had a look at this to see why it's not been an issue for me at all since its introduction and here are my conclusions...
# Generally, I set my smartlists to sort the way I want them and always include the needed sorting rules myself.
# If I need to make a permanent change to the sort order, I can either change the sorting rules in "Customise current view" or manually edit the smartlist rule, the results are the same.
# If I want to change the sort order on any given list temporarily, I can use list header clicks because I've set MC to not save those. I can't remember if that's still the default setting, but if it's not, I'm of the firm opinion that it should be.
# My smartlist views are 99% the 'pane + list' variety, the thumbnail ones I do have are sorted the way they are for a reason and I would never need to change that order, temporarily or otherwise.
# This means that I never use the "Sort" menu in the list header when viewing smartlists, but my investigations have shown me that if I wanted to make a temporary change to the sort order for a smartlist in thumbnail view then the easiest option is to use the sort menu in the header, but I would then need to remember to either edit the smartlist or customise the view to reset the sorting.
Is it not possible to have the sort options in the view header adhere to the "save clicks on list headers" rule set in options? or would this have other implications I've not thought about yet?
-marko.