Hi,
I think JUnit 3 uses reflection to find
test methods and according to the
Java 7 API of class Class declared methods are NOT returned in any particular order. So it probably depends on the vendor and version of your JDK but it's surely no portable solution to expect JUnit to find the methods in sorted order.
But I must admit I'm more familiar with
TestNG. TestNG offers you a way to describe dependencies between test methods via annotations. Would it be possible to upgrade the tests to use TestNG? Of course that would also mean to modify all tests as with the suite() method.
Unfortunately I can't imagine an easier way. I guess that's the price you have to pay for using dependent tests (a bad idea in my opinion). Maybe someone else can come up with a better idea.
Marco