"In the Active Turn, a player can change the Team Leader by placing the Team Leader Marker next to the Fireteam member he wishes to activate when declaring the first Skill of an Order." (Emphasis mine) When I read this I took it to mean that the "wish to activate" is a declaration of intent. The second part of the sentence (in italics) isn't telling you when the model becomes link lead, it's telling you the activation is occurring when you declare the first skill of your order. So the link lead is being chosen in step 1 of the order expenditure sequence, and tac awareness makes more sense this way. If you played it as link lead is chosen in step 3 of order expenditure, that would mean you could use the TA order to activate a non TA model which eliminates risk to the TA model if you decide to shoot with that order. The limitation is then arbitrary at that point and more confusing as well.
