Well, yeah it changes the order they are examined in, but does it allow one to pay to beat someone else who may have a competing patent in such a way that the payer can be the originator of the invention in question?
Agreed, there is a lot of baggage around this, making it hard to talk about. Does "first to file" really mean "first to have examined"?
("First to file" is a term that has a lot of baggage, so I wanted to be clear.)