@LokiClock said:

The bug is, if you don't sync on all inlets of all the patches going in, and all the outlets, it looks like you get the right list of outputs...

They key word here is "you". This is a user error, not a Pd bug. It's up to you to make sure things are executed in the order you intend.

Basically, the problem stems from the double semantics of t f f for splitting information and for controlling order of operations.

[t ] doesn't split anything. It just outputs the incoming message multiple times in right-to-left order (as well as possibly changing the message, such as in [t b f], but that doesn't seem relevant here). In other words, it's just meant for controlling order of operation.

Right. This would only be for outlets in the same. I'm working on a clearer model of the problem.

Clearer? Maybe I'm just too entrenched in the way Pd works, but you're actually just confusing the hell out of me. To be completely honest, I'm getting the impression that you're expecting Pd to do something it doesn't claim to do.

Since writing above, it seems like one solution is a dummy splitter, or some narrower-scale splitter, which will only control order of operations as far as satisfying one patch's cold-before-hot requirements.

That sounds like what [t ] is meant to do.