I was recently skimming through Bill German's book "Under Their Thumb", having put it aside for awhile. During the time that Bill would drop in on Keith in the mid 80's who was working on Dirty Work, Keith conveyed to Bill (pg 84) that "albums can be made or broken based on the order of songs." That got me to thinking, what if albums like Goats Head Soup had been tweaked differently? Although there have been many, many posts/threads from people (myself included) who speculate that the reason that Goats Head had not fared well as it was considered a weak album following the "classic period" of albums such as Let It Bleed, Stick Fingers, etc. However, it is probable that if the album's running order had been changed/tweaked, it may have been received by the public in a better light. For instance, even though I have favored the live version of Dancing with Mr D from Europe 73, IMHO- the studio version of Dancing With Mr. D. is arguably one of the weakest openers of a Stones album that I can remember....any comments (if this topic has ever been discussed before, I apologize)?

Definitely. Imagine opening that album with "Criss Cross"; going into "Heartbreaker". Maybe have "Winter" as the album closer.
There is also some grit missing in the overall sound. Don't know if this has to do with the diminished input from Kimmy Miller. JM was master, a master at recording percussion and Grand Piano. And wasn't Keith absent from much of the mixing sessions? The GHS songs in their final version lost some of their teeth. It's the "Steel Wheels" syndrome.

...about GHS: that has been discussed here previously (& not so long ago - just a couple of months, I reckon).
But I definitely agree...

["I can hear the Bullfrog calling me..."]