How to manipulate a Views grid output order?
There are three module (two that come with ctools) that you probably should be looking at. 
Page Manager, Views content panes, and Panels 

Also, one of the best screen cast tutorials addressing views can be found here:
http://dev.nodeone.se/en/list-group-content-with-page-manager

The focus is OG, but the way views is being used seems to directly apply to what you described.