Help with Finder - Choose Application - Default Applications - Recommended Applications

Whenever you try to specify a file to open with another application, by way of ctrl clicking it, it pops up the file dialog, but most of the files are greyed out until you change the drop down at the top from "recommended applications" to "all applications." This is INCREDIBLY annoying, and I either need to know how to add applications to the recommended list, or to make it default to All applications. Also, when I do select all applications and choose the one I need, that selection will last only as long as I have Finder open. The second I close Finder, the default application defaults back to whatever it was before. I am launching Xcode projects with various external editors, so I am using these menus quite a bit. It is very frustrating that there do not seem to be any settings to add and remove recommended applications from the list, and to make a file remember the application that I want it to be opened in. For the record, the "change all" option for working with a file's extension is not useful to me in this case. Does anyone know if there is some kind of .plist file that I can remove or alter that would get rid of these settings?

In Chronological order:

Now, after exiting finder (or just waiting a minute or two)