I haven't tried it, but I don't think it will work.  The ItemIndex is assigned based on the order the columns are added to the ReportControl.  If you delete them all and add them back in a different order, the ItemIndex for the columns will probably change (since they are being added in a different order than originally added) and will no longer correspond to the ReportRecordItems.

I don't there's going to be any acceptable workaround for this, so new functionality will need to be added.  You would think you could just change the 'Index' of a column to alter it's position, but this property is Read Only (even though the Documentation says it's a Read-Write Property ).

I hope a solution for this can be provided in the next release of ReportControl.  The ability to modify column positioning already exists (since you can drag/drop), so we just need to have it exposed programmatically.

For the record, this is something I'm interested in as well.  I had assumed that ReportControl would offer this basic functionality, so I was disappointed to find out that it did not.  Programmatically setting column order is very important.

I'd like to provide an interface similar to Outlook that allows the users to use a dialog to control which columns are visible and in which order.  Without being able to change column order myself, this simply can't be done.

It looks like having a 'SortAscending' property in the FieldChooser should also be added.  Sorted alphabetically is the default order for fields in the Outlook FieldChooser.