Thanks for the reply, unfortunately I have zero PHP experience so creating a plugin is way out of my league.
In the end I used ManagerManager
http://evolution.webprogramming.ca/assets/plugins/managermanager/docs/: to hide all the standard tabs except the first one, create new tabs and move all the fields to the various tabs I wanted. That way I could control the order of the tabs as well.
Still can’t find info on setting the default editing behavior to "Continue Editing" though...
For my future reference - ManagerManager settings used:
// RENAME AND CREATE TABS
mm_renameTab('general', 'Edit Content');
mm_createTab('Edit Sidebar', '4', '', '!3,7,8,9,10'); // Creates the Edit Sidebar tab with an ID of 4 on all templates except the home, minimal, sidebar, footer and header templates
mm_createTab('Image Slider', '5', '', '6'); // Creates the Image Slider tab with an ID of 5 on the image gallery template only
mm_createTab('Publish Settings', '6'); // Creates the Image Slider tab with an ID of 6
mm_createTab('Advanced Settings', '7'); // Creates the Advanced Settings tab with an ID of 7
// HIDE TABS
mm_hideTabs('settings');
// MOVE FIELDS TO TABS
mm_moveFieldsToTab('is_folder', 'general');
mm_moveFieldsToTab('searchable,longtitle,introtext,introImage,heroImage,tags,textBlock1,textBlock2,textBlock3,textBlock4,codeInjectionSummary,footerCopyright', 'general'); // Move fields to Edit Content tab
mm_moveFieldsToTab('sidebarBlock1,sidebarBlock2,sidebarBlock3,sidebarBlock4,sidebarBlock5,sidebarPageSpecific1,sidebarPageSpecific2', '4'); // Move fields to Edit Sidebar tab
mm_moveFieldsToTab('codeInjectionSlider,codeInjectionSliderNav,imageNumber', '5'); // Move to Image Slider tab
mm_moveFieldsToTab('published,pub_date,unpub_date', '6'); // Move to Publish Settings tab
mm_moveFieldsToTab('resource_type,content_type,content_dispo,is_richtext,log,cacheable,clear_cache', '7'); // Move fields to Advanced Settings tab
// SYCRONISE FIELDS
mm_synch_fields('pagetitle,longtitle');
// HIDE FIELDS
mm_hideFields('link_attributes');
mm_hideFields('description');
mm_hideFields('introtext', '', '8,5,9,10'); // Hides the Page Introduction field on non-rendering templates
mm_hideFields('longtitle', '', '8,5,9,10'); // Hides the Page Headline field on non-rendering templates
mm_widget_tags('tags');
// RENAME FIELDS
mm_renameField('pagetitle','Page Title');
mm_renameField('longtitle','Page Headline');
mm_renameField('alias','Page URL');
mm_renameField('introtext','Page Introduction');
mm_renameField('template','Page Template');
// RECOMMENDED CHANGE TO AVOID A CONFLICT WITH AN EXISTING PLUGIN
mm_widget_showimagetvs();
Cheers