helm-flx sorts results by the "closest" match to your typed in characters. For me, typing "tetri" has "tetris" listed first, with the next result matching all o

helm-flx sorts results by the "closest" match to your typed in characters. For me, typing "tetri" has "tetris" listed first, with the next result matching all of those characters in a different command, and each of the following results being less and less accurate matches. There is no alphabetical sorting, though. Popwin is very annoying for me, too. I'll look into trying out shackle. There is also a less-popular completion system for emacs called ivy. I don't know how it stacks up to ido or helm, but perhaps that one is also worth checking out.