Any Item Sorting Improvements?

I've been looking for a way to provide a more efficient and flexible item sorting on our webstore.

I am completely aware of the configuration options available for sorting on Name/Price via the layout definition. These options are insufficient as we would like to provide additional (custom) fields that could be used to sort items.

I've seen some custom scripted examples (that I found searching this forum) that create a dropdown box, but the examples I've seen still only provide a means to sort on Price and Name.

I know the webstore will change the sorting by adding these parameters "sort1desc=F&sort1=Item_NAME" to the URL. (this is how NetSuite's links actually change the sort) I've tried changing the value of the 'sort1' parameter to 'Item_CUSTITEM_MYCUSTOMFIELD' and other variations, but the system does not seem to recognize anything other than the default Name & Price values. These parameters would seem like an obvious, simple, and effective place to allow a dynamic sorting criteria.