diff -u release/project_release.install release/project_release.install
--- release/project_release.install	28 Jan 2010 21:33:57 -0000
+++ release/project_release.install	30 Jan 2010 00:20:04 -0000
@@ -631,6 +631,10 @@
 
 /**
  * Add the {project_release_nodes}.version_extra_delta field.
+ *
+ * Also recompute the latest and recommended releases on each branch, and
+ * therefore the update_status field, since version_extra_delta is needed
+ * to properly order alpha10 vs. alpha9, etc.
  */
 function project_release_update_6009() {
   $ret = array('#finished' => 0);
@@ -639,11 +643,12 @@
       'type' => 'int',
       'not null' => TRUE,
       'default' => 0,
+      'description' => 'The first span of digits found in version_extra. This is needed because we cannot natural sort natively without a stored procedure.',
     );
 
     db_add_field($ret, 'project_release_nodes', 'version_extra_delta', $spec);
 
-    // Initialize version_extra_delta to -1 to identify the rows we need to process.
+    // Initialize version_extra_delta to -1 to identify the rows to process.
     db_query('UPDATE {project_release_nodes} SET version_extra_delta = -1 WHERE version_extra IS NOT NULL');
 
     $_SESSION['project_release_update_6009'] = 0;
@@ -662,6 +667,11 @@
     db_query('UPDATE {project_release_nodes} SET version_extra_delta = %d WHERE nid = %d', ($nmatch) ? $match[1] : 0, $item['nid']);
 
     // Finally, recheck the branch.
+    // Note: this is ineffecient: we only really need to call this
+    // once per unique branch we're touching, not for every single
+    // release, but optimizing this isn't worth the effort, and would
+    // potentially require an enormous array in $_SESSION that could
+    // cause its own problems.
     project_release_check_supported_versions($item['pid'], $item['version_api_tid'], $item['version_major'], FALSE);
 
     $_SESSION['project_release_update_6009']++;
@@ -680 +690 @@
-}
\ No newline at end of file
+}
diff -u release/project_release.module release/project_release.module
--- release/project_release.module	28 Jan 2010 21:33:58 -0000
+++ release/project_release.module	30 Jan 2010 00:20:05 -0000
@@ -1143,6 +1143,12 @@
   // Within releases of the same version_extra_weight (e.g. rc1 vs. rc2),
   // sort by version_extra_delta.
   $order_bys[] = 'r.version_extra_delta DESC';
+  // Within releases of the same version_extra_weight and version_extra_delta,
+  // sort alphabetically. This shouldn't normally happen, but just in case you
+  // have multiple releases with the same delta (e.g. "alpha-one", "alpha-two"
+  // etc), at least you'll get deterministic results.
+  $order_bys[] = 'r.version_extra DESC';
+
   $order_by = 'ORDER BY '. implode(', ', $order_bys);
 
   $sql = "SELECT n.nid, n.title, n.created, r.* FROM {node} n ".
diff -u release/includes/release_node_form.inc release/includes/release_node_form.inc
--- release/includes/release_node_form.inc	28 Jan 2010 21:33:59 -0000
+++ release/includes/release_node_form.inc	30 Jan 2010 00:20:05 -0000
@@ -496,7 +496,7 @@
         break;
       }
     }
-    // If necessary, determine the version_extra_delta to use.
+    // If version_extra contains any digits, save them as version_extra_delta.
     // This is used to ensure that alpha10 is considered "newer" than alpha9.
     $match = array();
     if (preg_match('/(\d+)/', $node->project_release['version_extra'], $match)) {