People have been fighting years for an option to hide recent notes from the side bar. We have just enjoyed the life without 'recent notes' for less than 2 years then some 'genius' in the development team thought this was a must-have feature and now we are back at where we were, seriously?
The 'star' symbol has a universal meaning: my favourite, and has nothing to do with 'recent'. Even my 3-year-old knows the difference.