My most (in)famous ecclesial moment was when, as a young child, I received the sacrament before an apostle. Elder Maxwell’s son (or son-in-law or something) was our bishop, so he was visiting from out of town, the deacons messed up, and got a tongue lashing afterwards about how the presiding officer receives the sacrament first. (I, however, have no memory of this–too young).

Some spiritual hierarchies are organizationally necessary. God’s house is a house of order after all, and sometimes you need a prophet to lead a people to settle in a desert instead of lush Southern California. 

But some aren’t, and IMHO “presiding officer receives the sacrament first” is one of them. First, I get the point in trying to honor leadership, but we already have plenty of formal leadership honoring in our culture without using ordinances to further differentiate; Church leader self-esteem is not exactly at risk, and those sorts of hierarchy-reinforcing mechanics aren’t going to help the kind of members who reactively disregard or attack leaders. 

Plus, deacons (speaking from my own personal experience as one) aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed. We could barely get the sacrament passing pattern down on a typical Sunday (typically, outer-most in line serve to the flanks, then take the foyer, while the middle take the middle and work backwards, with some variation from ward to ward); throwing hierarchy ranking into the mix was typically too much for our small little 12-year old brains. 

Just a not-very-important aside. This isn’t a huge thing, and the Old Ship Zion will still be fine if this rule (or tradition, or whatever it is) stays.