I don't like using the Recently Used list in Gnome--other people often use my user account and I want to keep the files I view private--so I disable it using:

chattr +i ~/.local/share/recently-used.xbel

That ensures that nothing can write to the recently used files list, and it's the most often recommended solution for people wishing to disable the list--which is quite a lot of people judging from all the FAQs online.

The open file dialog in Gedit 3 defaults to "recently used", which is OK I guess, except in situations like mine where there's nothing in that list.  So every time I open a file in Gedit 3, I have to click on my Home directory to get where I want to be.  This is extra annoying because the ctrl+L shortcut to edit the dialog path doesn't work when viewing recently used, so I have to move my hand to the mouse to even start picking a file--I can't use any simple keyboard shortcuts to navigate to where I want to start browsing.

I propose that in the case of the recently used list being empty, the open file dialog defaults to the user's home directory.  This would also prevent confusion for new users, who when using a system for the first time might try to open a file in Gedit only to be presented with an empty screen.  It would also be more consistent with Gedit 2, which defaulted to Home for the open file dialog.