I always found it mildly annoying but I never gave it much thought. I usually just browse through my drive to the folder where I stash my projects ans open a file directly from there.

I'm not sure if this is related to the start screen issue but...:
 
Recently opened projects are updated in SONAR registry only if SONAR is closed wotjpit crashing. If SONAR crashes, currently open project is not stored in the registry. SONAR may also crash during exit, for example due to buggy 32 bit plug-in, and also in that case recent items are not updated.