Is setting up a custom view, setting its sorting criteria and using said custom view in subsequent autoplaylists not enough?
(http://7.t.imgbox.com/sFxwrMeB.jpg) (http://imgbox.com/sFxwrMeB)
My "AT_Default" custom view uses the "Albums and Tracks" layout and has a sort order of Album Artist > Year > Month.Date > Album > Track#. And it stays that way unless I elect to change the sort order for some reason otherwise it pretty much is "set it and forget it."
Here's an automatically generated custom view's innards (mediafield: displays which fields you want to view and their width when displayed; SortOverride: userset custom sorting criteria):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ApplicationSettings xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<PanelLayout>1</PanelLayout>
<Fields>
<MediaField>
<Code>40</Code>
<Width>233</Width>
</MediaField>
<MediaField>
<Code>20</Code>
<Width>216</Width>
</MediaField>
<MediaField>
<Code>78</Code>
<Width>0</Width>
</MediaField>
<MediaField>
<Code>116</Code>
<Width>30</Width>
</MediaField>
<MediaField>
<Code>76</Code>
<Width>51</Width>
</MediaField>
<MediaField>
<Code>86</Code>
<Width>48</Width>
</MediaField>
<MediaField>
<Code>65</Code>
<Width>410</Width>
</MediaField>
<MediaField>
<Code>75</Code>
<Width>94</Width>
</MediaField>
<MediaField>
<Code>14</Code>
<Width>44</Width>
</MediaField>
<MediaField>
<Code>16</Code>
<Width>70</Width>
</MediaField>
</Fields>
<SortOverride>6</SortOverride>
<Grouping>0</Grouping>
<ConsolidateAlbums>false</ConsolidateAlbums>
<AlbumLayoutGroupingD>true</AlbumLayoutGroupingD>
<AlbumLayoutGroupingP>true</AlbumLayoutGroupingP>
<NavigatorAlbumHeader>0</NavigatorAlbumHeader>
<AlbumLayoutHeaderContrast>0</AlbumLayoutHeaderContrast>
<NavigatorAlbumHeader1>0</NavigatorAlbumHeader1>
<AlbumLayoutHeaderContrast1>0</AlbumLayoutHeaderContrast1>
<NavigatorAlbumListField0>123</NavigatorAlbumListField0>
<NavigatorAlbumListField1>139</NavigatorAlbumListField1>
<NavigatorAlbumListField2>35</NavigatorAlbumListField2>
<NavigatorAlbumListField3>0</NavigatorAlbumListField3>
<NavigatorAlbumListField4>0</NavigatorAlbumListField4>
<NavigatorAlbumListField5>0</NavigatorAlbumListField5>
<NavigatorAlbumListField6>0</NavigatorAlbumListField6>
<AlbumTextOnRight>true</AlbumTextOnRight>
<AlbumCompressTracks>true</AlbumCompressTracks>
<AlbumCompressTracksP>true</AlbumCompressTracksP>
<AlbumLayoutMinTracks>0</AlbumLayoutMinTracks>
<AlbumLayoutPadSubHeader>false</AlbumLayoutPadSubHeader>
</ApplicationSettings>