Now that we have begun to have calender integration, I think we will be creating a lot more time-specific items. I think a feature that allows an item to auto-sort its children by date would be extremely useful. I understand that it would be a big step since there is no auto searching of any kind yet, but for me this would allow me to keep a very nicely organized agenda and help me immensely with planning.
I think the sorting should be based only on starting dates if we incorporate durations. If we incorporate recurring items, it would be amazing if we could also have the option to make clones or links or some indication that the item exists at multiple future times. Perhaps the user can define a visibility range for the item too since recurring tasks go on forever. So, for example, the default could be two weeks, but it could be increased or decreased by any number of days. If any non-recurring items have dates outside of this visibility range, they will still visible in the list because the visibility only applies to the 2nd or higher instance of recurring tasks.