Sorry to bump this but I'm it's really bugging me. Is there a development solution here? Thanks!

The usual way to reorder accounts and folders is with the Manually sort folders add-on. You can place Local Folders at the top of the Folder Pane when View/Folders is set to All, but when it's set to Unified, Local Folders moves below the Unified folders. I'm not aware of any way to work around this, but perhaps you could create a saved search that aggregates the inboxes, like Unified view, but place it under Local Folders.

Thanks for the response! I did try Manually Sort Folders and since I'm using Unified, that didn't work. I'll try the saved search route.

Edit: I found a solution. I created a dummy mail account named Active that will be on the top of the accounts in Unified Folders. In that account I can add my Search Folder. This searches all IMAP accounts (5) for unread and for starred. This is my PENDING search folder.