Automatically set initial rank based on issue key?

[Nancy S. Bennett]

I have a client who plans to do a lot of CSV importing into new projects (one time per project) and he wants the initial rank of the issues on his board to follow the issue key. Going forward rank order will change, so ordering by issue key is not an option because they want to use rank, it is just that we need to set the "initial rank". I know there is no way currently to import rank via a csv file. I did read something that talked about exporting issues with rank that could be imported back in, and that was sort of interesting except the issues are not the same project after project so I can't count on an identical set of issues. So what I really want is to do the following:

1.)Import issues in a new project with no other existing issues (after import, visit the board and see that rank is "random")

2.)Board is configured to order by rank. Now,  somehow set initial rank to follow the order of issue key (don't believe this is possible, this is my question). It is important to note I am NOT talking about having the board order by issue key as that would mean they are permanently stuck with the issue key ordering, the board must order by rank, I just want to force the initial ranking order.

3.)End users can now rank issues freely in board as normal. No plans to import more issues, just to use the project normally (manually creating new issues).

Any ideas on how this or some equivalent is possible?