>In a combo box with RowSourceType set to 5 (array), array sorted in a user-specified order, not necessarily alphabetical, bound to a data field; when opened on an empty data field is there any way to force the list to open at the top of the list instead of the middle or bottom as it sometimes does now?

Not tested, but I guess you can add some conditional code to GotFocus, like

If empty(yourfield)
   KEYBOARD "{Home}" PLAIN CLEAR 
endif