There is a lot of misinformation on the system role in the community.
The problem, I think, is that developers are using the playground and other UIs which do not save the messages array and a DB, etc. OR, they are not writing their API code to manage the messages array properly. OR, there is a different flaw we cannot see.
If you use the API, this is “not an issue at all”. I have no issues at all with the system role at the beginning of the messages array, despite @cesidarocha informative posts to the contrary. I have tested this extensively over two days and never have a problem with the system prompt being the first message in the messages array (or the last entry in the messages array).
See, for example: