By working on Pd's manual, I can see the current priority is to look first
in the directory containing the patch, then in the search paths. I still
want to maintain that structure. I just think that the order of the paths
should be different, first with "standard paths" (which includes 'extra')
then the user added paths.

I think you are right that the core "extra" externals should have priority. We've clearly de-emphasized users during everything into "extra"  so, at this point, there shouldn't be much to break for people's setups.

That's my macOS perspective. I suppose the situation might be a little different for some Linux packages?

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Dan Wilcox
@danomatika
danomatika.com
robotcowboy.com