Hi Matt,
I see what you mean. I did not add a sort specification. So I did. But indeed, after you select a tag the sort order is like the content database and when deselecting the tags the sort specs are gone. I think the sort order has to be in the code too. I have to look into that because I need the sort order too.
I don’t have the second problem. On page load no tag is selected. I did not alter the code @naamar suggested besides collection names etc.