1) When viewing your Recommendations list, pressing the "cancel" button (for me this is O on the gamepad, although I may have changed it to this in the config so that may not be the default) should close it, just like it does for any other UI element (e.g. inventory lists maps, etc.). Right now pressing O just makes it not the "active" element but keeps the list up on your screen.

2) The auto-sort feature should not just auto-stack items, it should actually sort them as well. e.g. Keep all foods next to each other, then all meds, all materia, all crafting materials (which should be further subdivided by discipline and type if possible, e.g. keep all mats for certain craft next to each other, and within that keep all webs together, all feathers, ...), etc.

It doesn't have to be in this exact order, obviously, but there needs to be some sort of order to it, because right now it's a mess.