Posts with the same sentiment.
Really, that’s the only place where it indicates that it might be tiered/sequential. Everything else around this (the announcement, the UI) does seem to imply picking the prestige you’d want. Apart from being displayed vertically, there’s no indicator that it’s ordered, or any number associated/displayed with it. Prestige “level” could also just have meant how many of the 3 were unlocked, rather than Prest 1, 2, 3.
People who didn’t realise they’d be reset to lvl 1 - that’s on them. That part was pretty clear.
Playing on PTR is when I found out it was ordered. That’s still = 