My LCD has an HD47780 chip (or is it HD44780?) which means that it uses the same pin configuration as most character LCD's.

as you said:

You can use any port bits you like in any order, as long as your code accomodates this.

That is my point.

From a newbie's stand point, it is best to connect the pins in the logical order that I mentioned above.

We should not expect a newbie to encrypt every piece of data he wants to send to the LCD.