On the field settings page for Integer fields, the minimum and maximum value textfields are split by the help text box

True.

Attached patch makes sure the 'common' input elements (label, required, help text) live in the negative weights space, so that hook_field_instance_settings_form() and hook_field_widget_settings_form() can happily add their own elements without bothering with weights.

Hrm...

This is a UI change, which ought to be disallowed now that we've shipped 7.0.

OTOH, this is a fairly un-frequently accessed page, and is likely to disturb no one since the patch puts the fields in the order that one would generally expect.

So.. I think I'm going to let this slide in. But anything much more major than this is off the table until Drupal 8, now... :\

Committed to HEAD.