I might be totally stupid here but I simply don't understand why 'TO' should be 'in front of (before)' since it comes at the end of the word - in front of what ?
If the To simply equals In front of (and therefore standing on its own) there's no need to think of it as 'before' - maybe that's just a misdirection? I can see how that works, though I'm hopeless at explaining!
I don't think we've resolved this one, but at least we all tried! I'll try to remember to look out for the solving blog when it appears on the Times For The Times website.