Is DC current directionality ever important?

This is sort of a follow-on to a previous question about why LED current limiting resistors are sometimes between the LED and rail and sometimes between the LED and ground:

http://www.eeweb.com/electronics-forum/feel-good-help-a-noob-basic-resistor-placement

The answer was: Makes no difference.

Now I'm curious, are there ever cases where component order in DC circuits IS important?

I'm thinking that since electrons move from negative to positive, and the voltage wavefront that pushes them is also directional, are there ever circuit components where you definitely want Part A "in front of" Part B because Part B is more sensitive to voltage spikes?

Voltage is like a pressure. When it is applied across a current path, current flows. It flows everywhere in the current path at once, instantaneously. Perhaps at very high frequencies their is a positional consideration because of standing waves or reflected energy, but I don't know enough about such things to comment.

Ah yes, good point. In fact, someone in the referred to previous post used a "water in a hose analogy." So ... all them little electrons start moving at once ...

Or do they? The one intersection with analog I have in my digital background is transmission line theory. There IS a wavefront involved - I've looked at enough oscilloscope traces of ringing on 0 to 1 and 1 to 0 transitions to know that something definite is going on in the time domain.

To rephrase my question then: Do rising or falling edge considerations ever affect the ordering of components in circuits?

This is not really a DC quiz is it?
Since u are a digital guy!
Pwm: (fast rising and falling edges)
When using pwm you have to use a resistor and then a a capacitor, to get a nice low frq output.
You filtrer the signal so only low frq signals are used.
If you put the capacitor first you wont get any nice low frq signal.
I would say that it is a special case with the led and the resistor, rather than a rule!
When You use capacitors inductors and transistors you need to know where to put them.

Yes, but he's talking about a series circuit. Can you think of a case where position is relevant in a series circuit?

No, this really is a DC quiz. I only brought up the digital / xmission line stuff to point out that instantaneous is not always instantaneous.

Let's go back to the LED question that inspired this: Suppose you had a bunch of crappy components; staticy power supplies, bouncy switches, and LEDs that blow out if you give them mean looks. Also, you lack time or money to add switch debounce or other signal conditioning.

In this admittedly artificial example, would it THEN make a difference which side of the LED you put the resistor?

Finally, to generalize, does this kind of component placement conundrum ever occur in real life?

Well, I generally work below 1 MHz so I'm not an authority on high frequency phenomena, but I do know that the position of a coil on an antenna is critical. Called a load, it has a very different affect near the end than it does near the transmission line. The same would be true for a filament lamp placed in series with the antenna line. Assuming the is enough power to light the lamp, it would glow more brightly near the transmission line than out near the end of the antenna line.

So, that suggests that there are cases where the placement of resistor and LED could make a difference.