Yes, very off topic. But, happy to provide my insights.
1. Hmm, interesting! I guess regardless if a discussion is branched that it retains the original subject line in the "Recent Content" list/widget. I'm curious if this will update in the next 24 hours, I'll also follow up with our community sofware provider to see if this is the expected behavior.
2. I assume that the ''Recent Content" displays threads based on the date of the latest update. Since I marked an answer as correct on the discussion (Re: new uesername) without writing a reply to that discussion it natually brought it to to the top of the list.