So I give MS Project a shot. Here's what I discover:

If I use Standard levelling, and I have tasks that look like this:
Task X Priority 1
Task Y Priority 2 Predecessors 1
Task Z Prioirty 3
Then it does task X first, then task Y, then task Z,
instead of Task Z (the highest priority), Task X, Task Y.

If I use Priority, Standard, that situation works, but then this situation doesn't work:
Task X Priority 1
Task Y Priority 3 Predecessors 1
Task Z Priority 2
This should do Task X, then Task Y, then Task Z, but it
goes: Z, X, Y.

If I set the priority for task X to 3, accepting that Project doesn't understand that being a predecessor to a high-priority task implies that you're just as high a priority, then it works, but I'm trying to migrate a project from Excel that has about two-thousand tasks in it, and I would need some way to automate the process. Is there some way to automate the process so that priorities are 'correct'?

Or is MS Project fundamentally broken? The Outlook / SourceSafe of the Project Management Software world?

I'm posting this question in 4 separate places; my apologies if you end up reading it more than once.

Project Management Pattern Wiki

Came across this today and got lost in it. http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ProjectManagement

A whole lot of: "We're at our most productive when we work 30 hour weeks at home with a view of nature and two hookers." I want to believe.