Your reasoning certainly seems logical, but according to Chinese Battleship vs. Japanese Cruiser: Yalu River 1894 by Benjamin Lai shows the Japanese main squadron led by the Matsushima (Vice Admiral Ito's flagship) followed by Itukushima, Hashidate, Chiyoda, Fuso, Hiei, Sakiyo Maru, and Akagi. The reasoning for this arrangement is not given that I could find. However, this could be due to the Matsushima being considered a slightly better sea boat than her sister ships due to the placement of the main gun. Another possible reason could be that with the big gun mounted aft the Admiral's vision of the battle would be less hampered by the smoke from the main gun firing.

The model of the Matsushima was a WTJ WTJ-0611218 1/1250 scale Matsushima (3D DLP).