Comment 7 for bug 211743

If by 'default application' you mean the application that is used when you double-click the file in Nautilus, then yes, I would consider opening the file with that same application in Recent Documents the correct behaviour.
I don't know how I can give an example of the broken behaviour more explicitly than the example I detailed in my last comment: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-panel/+bug/211743/comments/5

Here's an example of a bookmark from my .recently-used.xbel. The file is an avi file for which I use VLC. When opening this file in Nautilus by double-clicking on it VLC opens and plays the video. But, when accessing the file through Recent Documents it insists on opening with Totem, as does every other video file when opened through Recent Documents, even if I have never used Totem to view them.

  <bookmark href="file:///home/kanem/film/sicko.avi" added="2008-04-29T02:30:37Z" modified="2008-04-29T02:30:53Z" visited="2008-04-29T02:30:37Z">
    <title>sicko.avi</title>
    <info>
      <metadata owner="http://freedesktop.org">
        <mime:mime-type type="video/x-msvideo"/>
        <bookmark:groups>
          <bookmark:group>Totem</bookmark:group>
        </bookmark:groups>
        <bookmark:applications>
          <bookmark:application name="File Manager" exec="&apos;vlc&apos;" timestamp="1209436237" count="1"/>
          <bookmark:application name="Totem Movie Player" exec="&apos;totem %u&apos;" timestamp="1209436253" count="1"/>
        </bookmark:applications>
      </metadata>
    </info>
  </bookmark>

Below is the results of gnomevfs-info:

Name : sicko.avi
Type : Regular
MIME type : video/x-msvideo
Default app : totem.desktop
Size : 730415104
Blocks : 1428000
I/O block size : 4096
Local : YES
SUID : NO
SGID : NO
Sticky : NO
Permissions : 1600700
Link count : 1
UID : 1000
GID : 1000
Access time : Mon Apr 28 22:30:39 2008
Modification time : Tue Jun 12 17:51:12 2007
Change time : Wed Mar 26 11:45:11 2008
Device # : 2056
Inode # : 1359894
Readable : YES
Writable : YES
Executable : YES