Hey bubdev,
Cheers for the praise. I’m currently working on cactus masonry 2, which will be a complete custom overhaul of CM1. It should be much more lightweight and shouldn’t require any external libraries. This version will allow for advanced sorting options including menu order and nested sorting. I also plan to release an update for CM1 based on CM2 with some fixes and efficiency improvements.
Just a thought: Cactus Masonry just passes through the post_orderby value to the orderby parameter of the standard WP get_posts function. Have you tried using ‘menu_order’ with Cactus Masonry?
Also, please note that any masonry gallery will not keep its exact order. Each brick must move to fit its best fitting location, so any order will be approximate.
Cheers