Well...actually, I do like the salad first, but with some cuisines it doesn't work that way and I am fine with that, too. In my house, salad is sometimes an entree. And that's where I am more lenient about food touching, because in my salad I like chicken, bacon, dark mixed greens/spinach/sprouts, tomatoes from my garden, cukes, kalamata olives, mushrooms, feta/goat cheese/shaved parm reggiano, pine nuts/pistachios, and more. It's all touching under the same umbrella of salad dressing. Oh, and my homemade croutons. SMH at myself sometimes and my food idiosyncrasies.
I think if you have a salad on a plate with your sandwich and it's the type of sandwich that the salad works with, that would be fine. And you can always get dressing on the side to make it work even better.
Don't even get me started about restaurants that serve side dishes that don't complement the entree. Ugh.