"Recent" lacks notion of time (by default)
Commit dedd9c61 introduced Name, Size and Location as default columns for Recent on List view. By doing so, it removed the reference to how recently/when a file has been used.
As such, there is no way to find files by "how recently" they were used just by looking at the list. While it is possible to use the search filter or to add Recency column, I think Recent view should emphasize time by default.
The lazy fix for list view would be adding "Recency" column by default (maybe replacing "Size"). A more complete fix would require grouping files under headers ("Today", "Yesterday", "Earlier this week", etc.) in the new icon view.