Also with an 80pin cable, it's necessary to put the master device on the end of the cable and the slave device in the middle. This wasn't so the case with 40 pin cable.

Just getting the motherboard end in the right place is good enough, usually. Indeed, "backwards" devices also have always worked for me.

If you put the "motherboard" end on the furthest device, you end up losing the benefits of the 80 conductor cable.