I could be completely wrong here, but I’m pretty sure Pain was, and still is, a bigger hit than Work.
I was just about to put that edit in there when I saw your reply. You could argue that case definitely. Anecdotally speaking, Work had a much bigger impact on TV and radio in the UK in my experience at the time. Pain might have had more success not because it was a better single, but because it was in more videogames? Or perhaps Pain charted higher initially but work had a longer shelf-life in the musical zeitgeist. Could be a UK vs US thing. I never saw Pain on Kerrang or MTV2 or Scuzz but I saw Work on there all the time.
Regardless of that detail, having the more "rocky" single come first and the more "poppy" single come second, and the second arguably doing better, is not unheard of for this band. So I could see the argument for Criminal Energy being first and All the Way (Stay) being second.
As much as I hate to admit it, they will almost certainly not have a hit like The Middle or Pain in this musical climate so they are probably less concerned with how the singles are arranged.
While I agree they wont have a hit like that, I still imagine the label will want to make the decisions that give them the best shot at making money. *shrug* I do think rock is coming back a little bit, at least in the UK, with the likes of Liam Gallagher and Sam Fender. But if it doesn't, maybe 555 could have a shot one day. But that's probably wishful thinking. I'm happy them just being our somewhat niche band who had their moment once.
a real one on reddit saved all the Kimmel performances, for anyone still looking for "Criminal Energy": Dropbox - Live on Jimmy Kimmel 10.10.19 mp4s - Simplify your life
They need to focus on getting more placements if they want another “big” song. It’s not going to come from radio.