I had a look at the example (thanks for sending the template @danielbmarsh) and I can see the issue here.
There may be a potential solution by introducing a relationship which allows encoding the order of tasks within the same project (a 1:1 self-relation: Previous - Next using the idea described here) but it would probably be a bit clumsy, and might lead to loop detection triggering.
Alternatively, you can just add an editable ‘priority’ field to the template items, and then copy this to the created items, and sort on this value after they have been created.
I agree that there is potentially a need for users to be able to adjust an entity’s position programmatically, but I still think it won’t be implemented in the way of allowing users to edit the rank value directly.
I say this because of the way rank works which means we probably don’t want users directly adjusting the values.
Maybe we need to consider adding an action in automations to allow for ‘moving position’ of an entity relative to another entity. I haven’t thought deeply about how this might work, or what it would look like though.
And to be clear, i can’t imagine we will get to doing this any time soon, unless there is a massive spike in demand for this functionality.