hm, yes, the locale would have to be the first part. i guess it makes sense to not rely on the listener then. and users are not expected to edit AutoRoute by hand, so its different (on normal routes, without the listener you could move your route in the tree and it would be at /de but the stored locale be "fr"...)

about the pattern: there are two multilang scenarios, one where you have just one route per content and have the pattern, the other with multiple translated routes that are each for only one locale. but i guess with autoroute, supporting the pattern approach with a single route makes no sense at all (its mostly useful for pages that are routes at the same time, like simple cms, and there you need no auto routes)