Sorry to necropost, but has anything been done about this? Apart from the inconvenience of not having this quite basic feature, it also imposes a heavier load when you click on a long, media-rich notes.
Please do this. A contacts notebook should be organized alphabetically. A diary notebook should be organized chronologically by when the note was created. A project notebook should be organized chronologically by when the note was updated. It's a pointless bother having to do the adjustment manually and detracts from the seamless experience that Evernote, usually successfully, strives to offer.