Direct orders don't really fit with the game. Pretty much the entire point is that you don't have that. Instead you say what needs done and the dwarves' AIs manage the rest.
Except from the obvious fact that at least at this point, it simply doesn't work. Direct control has its downsides, but the way the AI works now, it's simply required. I'm so sick and tired of giving "critical orders" like pulling moat bridge levers, feeding bedridden patients, burying the dead, talking to caravan diplomats, bringing trade goods to depots, etc. and having them ignored because the dwarves would rather eat, sleep or carry leather earrings to Random Stockpile 9.
I would rather have direct control than having to spend minutes micromanaging dwarf jobs, locking doors and the like to get them to do what I want (the worst is when you have to have a lever pulled and you just about have to draft a dwarf, station him in the room, and then lock him in and disable all his jobs so that pulling the lever is the
only thing he can do -- for then to remember what jobs he had afterwards and reactivate them all so he can go on working).
Seriously -- you may not think it "fits the game", but some sort of workaround is sorely needed. Either give me direct orders to let me designate "Critical" jobs, like "Closest dwarf to this lever pulls it. Now" or "drop your shit and start talking to the diplomat" or "FFS give those injured men water before even more of them thirst to death".
Mouse support and UI improvements are sorely needed, too, but we all know that already...