Well the problem is that it is actually not like that. I have only one group (I don't bother with groups since I use only icq), I always hide offline contacts as well as empty groups. And my online contacts are certainly not ordered, I have to use the "search" option to find anybody, which is not very handy.
The "Arrange metacontacts by group" option does not do anything, and this is pretty logical as I have only one group.
I use detailed view, but this should not matter.
Edit: A little experiment: view type does not change anything. If I rename a contact, it changes its position, but I can not get the pattern. It is not alphabetical, however.