Whoa, thank YOU for taking the time to reply so thoroughly! And for making the game, which I am fully obsessed with.
Regarding recipe drops: my main reason for farming them so desperately was that I wanted to build some dang storage. If there are more types of storage in the game now, the low drop rate should be less of an issue, I think.
Bad news: while the question marks have disappeared, the ghost items still take up space on the ground (I can't build on them, and they're labeled "Item" when I mouse over). Also, while I can open shelves now, I cannot open chests XD