The electron-phonon and spin-phonon coupling in typical high-T_C cuprates, like LSCO and HBCO are peaked for just a few q-vectors because of the 2-dimensional Fermi surface shape. The activation of few spin-phonon modes compensates for the low electronic density-of-states, and the superconducting T_C can be high. Thermal disorder of the lattice perturbs the strongly coupled modes already at moderately high temperature. This happens because of incoherent potential fluctuations of the Madelung term and reduced spin-phonon coupling. This effect puts a limit on long-range superconductivity, while fluctuations can persist on a shorter length scale at higher temperatures. BCS-type model calculations are used to show how disorder can reduce the superconducting gap and T_C. Ordering of dopants into stripes has been suggested to improve superconducting properties, mainly through an increased DOS. Such a mechanism seems to be a good way to make T_C more resistant to thermal disorder at low doping.