I've set the sorting of work packages to manually and would expect that the work packages order would be modified as I drag and drop in the list but that doesn't seem to be the case. When I re-order the work packages and reload the page, they're back in their initial order. 

Maybe this is by design, but then I'm wondering why the frontend would have to send a request to the backend for the re-ordering if it's not supposed to stick anyway.

Is there a way to re-order work packages in the work packages list?

I found out why. I hadn't noticed that when you move around the work packages, a floppy disk symbol appears at the title of the view to save the view's settings.