long story short: unless you're hyper-optimising some specific thing then don't worry about it and let the compiler sort it out for you

in general: it does not matter, your code will work. however, performance may not be optimal. fetches into cache are aligned to multiples of bus width, etc, so if your data isn't aligned it might need more fetches. very simplistic explanation and the real world is much more complex :)

Messy, perhaps, but there is organisation there! It is quicker to search a random heap than it is to sort it in the first place

My local classical radio station sneaks some final fantasy stuff in from time to time, that makes me smile :)