Yes that's correct.
If I have the "use backend channel order" option checked, then the option to sort by name/channel number in the left pane of the EPG is greyed out, and the channels are listed mostly in alphabetical order.
If I have the "use channel numbers from backend" option checked, then most of the channels have a channel number of 0. Though if I scroll down I find some channels do have numbers, but nothing like the numbers in the vbox backend - they'll have very random numbers like 5932.
I was reading here:
http://trac.kodi.tv/ticket/15862 which suggests that if channels have the same number then kodi will always order them alphabetically regardless of the "use channel numbers from backend" option - and this seems to be what is happening in my case.
The only way I can get the channels to list in the correct order, and with the correct numbers is to untick both the "use backend channel order" and "use channel numbers from backend" options, and then order them manually in the kodi interface. The unfortunate thing is that I have 3 different devices running kodi, so I'd prefer to only have to configure the numbers in the backend.
I've tried clearing the channel and EPG data several times so that the channel numbers are re-gathered, but this doesn't make a difference.
I also have a large number of crashes - for example whenever I try to clear the channel numbers and/or EPG data - or when tick/untick the option to Enable/Disable Live TV. It seems that if the machine has been left Idle for a while then it crashes whenever I try something PVR-related. I am going to try upgrading to one of the v16 Nightly builds and see whether this is more stable - also in the hope that I might be able to get the series link option that is promised in v16.
Failing that, I may experiment with using TVHeadend - though that will mean I'll need to leave my mediapc powered on in order to get the recordings - rather than just having the vbox powered on and writing the recordings directly to my NAS device.