I'll be happy to discuss with you the rational for this policy during office hours. After the final exam grades are in, I add up the points for each homework, quiz and exam for all the students, based on the weights announced in the syllabus, and rank all the students in a descending order according to their total score. I plan to go over the grading process again during the first class after the midterm exam.
Most students prefer the fact that the entries are in alphabetical order.
The anonymous e-mail thing you've set up is great. I cannot read other people's feedback because my eye keeps wandering back to it. I thought it was cool at first, but now I find it completely distracting. Well, even if one of my students is unhappy with that icon, I'll surely remove it. Standard deviation is a measure of variability.