SwiftData Query and optional relationships

Xcode 16.2 (16C5032a)

FB16300857

Consider the following SwiftData model objects (only the relevant portions are shown) (note that all relationships are optional because eventually this app will use CloudKit):

@Model
final public class Team {
    public var animal: Animal?
    public var handlers: [Handler]?
    ...
}

@Model
final public class Animal {
    public var callName: String
    public var familyName: String
    @Relationship(inverse: \Team.animal) public var teams: [Team]?
    ...
}

@Model
final public class Handler {
    public var givenName: String
    @Relationship(inverse: \Team.handlers) public var teams: [Team]?
}

Now I want to display Team records in a list view, sorted by animal.familyName, animal.callName, and handlers.first.givenName.

The following code crashes:

struct TeamListView: View {
    @Query<Team>(sort: [SortDescriptor(\Team.animal?.familyName),
        SortDescriptor(\Team.animal?.callName), 
        SortDescriptor(\Team.handlers?.first?.givenName)]) var teams : [Team]
    
    var body: some View {
        List {
            ForEach(teams) { team in 
                ...
            }
        }
    }
}

However, if I remove the sort clause from the @Query and do the sort explicitly, the code appears to work (at least in preliminary testing):

struct TeamListView: View {
    @Query<Team> var teams: [Team]
    
    var body: some View {
        let sortedTeams = sortResults()
        List {
            ForEach(sortedTeams) { team in 
                ...
            }
        }
    }
    
    private func sortResults() -> [Team] {
        let results: [Team] = teams.sorted { team1, team2 in 
            let fam1 = team1.animal?.familyName ?? ""
            let fam2 = team2.animal?.familyName ?? ""
            let comp1 = fam1.localizedCaseInsensitiveCompare(fam2)
            if comp1 == .orderedAscending { return true }
            if comp1 == .orderedDescending { return false }
            ... <proceed to callName and (if necessary) handler givenName comparisons> ...
        }
    }
}

While I obviously have a workaround, this is (in my mind) a serious weakness in the implementation of the Query macro.