Mark,

I go to the Members page. It defaults to sorted by Joined, most recent
first. I then click on any other column header. And it retains the
existing sort direction. ... Is that not what you asked for?

No. At least, it is not what I would want.

That is,

1) starting with Joined/Applied most recent first,
2) I click Email and change it to alphabetical,
3) I click back to Joined/Applied.

As it is now, Joined/Applied has mysteriously switched to oldest first. (Ok, not mysterious: you copied the direction from the email column.) I think it is a violation of least astonishment - in what way is a member's Joined/Applied date connected to his/her email address? Why would changing the order of one change the order of the other?

What I want is for each column to retain its own direction, independent of changing the direction of any other other column.

Shal