Request: Category flexibility: First post, archive

It would be great if there was a way to organize category pages showing oldest post first (If I made a Page for each category I can do it with a query_posts and sorted ASC, but that is cumbersome when I have a high number of categories). Another solution is to be able to link to the oldest post in the category.

As for the archives, if there was a way for each category page to have an archive limited to the related category, again, would be great. Sorting archives: Yearly, by Category.

Thanks for thinking about it!