Hi james
u-v direction is one thing that I still have a problem with it.
I couldn't find a way to force it to use one direction for "uvs".
But for your problem, I suggest to use "method 2" to generate normals.

About ordering issue all that rebuilding surface functions (network, join and separate) make new objects with new object "ids" and new ordering.
But, I managed to reorder surfaces to their original state. (Uploaded)
https://moi3d.com/forum/messages.php?webtag=MOI&msg=9581.321

And about the "surface" output I thought it would be nice to see the surfaces after rebuild function,
Because all surfaces are not simple and planar, and rebuild method in this node has its limitations.
In this example you can see the surface's form has changed after performing rebuild function.