@matthias the latest 8.5 release candidate that was published an hour ago contains a hidden command called TestPrintSortOrder
This will not autocomplete so you will have to type out the entire command to run it.
If you run this command and change UseLayersWhenSorting to no, the I believe you should get items printed in the order that you want. Please give this a try and let me know if this produces the desired results.
Thanks,
-Steve
Here are instructions to get the latest 8.5 release candidate