If you want to present your table data in a readable format, you need a front end application.
Arranging table columns is the job of such a tool.
Adding "ALTER TABLE MOVE COLUMN ... BEFORE/AFTER COLUMN ..." is pretty trivial, requiring "just another table", which stores the physical order of the columns, and also the order in which they are presented to the "user layer". I know this because such a feature was implemented 15+ years ago in Rdb/VMS.
The feature has been discussed before on these lists and the only thing preventing its inclusion is some developers either donating their time to see it finished or some interested non-developers paying some developers to write it on their behalf.
David J.
