What could be driving it crazy in this case is ALL 3000 albums were imported on the same day since I moved them all from my old NAS drive to a new NAS in one Copy operation on 7/16.
Well, that is unfortunate because the Recent Albums View is just a view of all Albums sorted by [Date Imported].
What you could have done with your NAS move was just move the files and then Update the Library using the RM&CF function with the "Update database to point to new location (no file rename, move, or copy)" setting, and retained all your original [Date Imported] data. You did not need to reimport all your files.
As you have only recently done the move, if you still have a Library Backup from just before the move (MC makes them automatically, often), and if you haven't done too much work since the move, you could Restore that Library Backup and do the RM&CF Update, and then your Recent Albums View would work properly again.
Also note though that the default JRemote/Panel/Gizmo "Audio > Recent" View does seem to have lost its sort on [Date Imported] at some stage, so you will need to add that back in, or use the new View you created following mwillems' instructions above.
EDIT: A minor clarification. The "Audio > Recent" View in MC hasn't lost its sort on [Date Imported]. It was never part of the View definition in Standard View, and that has just carried across to the JRemote/Panel/Gizmo Views. It has always just been a sort added via the dropdown "Sort By" menu in the top section of the "Standard View" View. Panel doesn't include that functionality, so it needs to be added into the JRemote/Panel/Gizmo "Audio > Recent" View definition explicitly. You will have to do that with either (or both) the default View definition, or the one created above. Note also that there is no way to define whether the [Date Imported] is sorted in Ascending or Decending order, but it sorts in Decending order automatically, which puts the most recent Albums at the top, which for me is the correct order.
I also noted two other reasons why the sort order would be different:
1. The files had no data in the [Album] field, in which case MC sorted the
Unassigned Album to the top and Panel sorted the
Unassigned Album to the bottom of the list. This implies that MC is doing some sorting on [Album] as it is the Category in the View, even though the View is sorted only by [Date Imported]. That can be a bit confusing, particularly as it has overridden the [Date Imported] sort, giving priority to the [Album] sort. In my example the files where recognised as an Album (Grouped) because they were the only files in the sub-directory.
Note JRiver: Interestingly the setting at "Options > Tree & View > Sorting > Sort empty strings last" had no effect on where the
Unassigned Album was sorted to. I guess because it wasn't a real sort, but default behaviour for View Categories coded into MC.
2. The [Date Imported] was identical, down to the 16th decimal place, for two single Track Albums. In that case the sort order is arbitrary, and Panel had them reversed compared to MC. It could be that MC sorted by [Album] when [Date Imported] couldn't separate them. I can't tell.
So redmodred, make sure that the JRemote/Panel/Gizmo View has the [Date Imported] sort in it (add it in), and check your metadata for the Albums is complete. Then the Views in MC and Panel will be identical, with the minor exceptions above.