The "Recent Items" list on the Apple menu is great, but it only shows (comfortably) as many items as the screen is high. "Recent Servers" is a folder in ~/Library so you could use that; Apps and Documents maybe folders too, but the Finder's Smart Folders give another, more controllable solution.
I have a "Recent Apps" smart folder with these settings:
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20050529070452402