Sorry I bought Office 2013

Go to View Tab> Macros > View Macro.

Type in a name (OpenRecentStuff) and press Create. Add this in between the sub lines:

CommandBars.ExecuteMso("FileOpenUsingBackstage")

Save the macro.

Then go to Options > Customize Ribbon and pick Macrofor the Choose commands from dropdown.

Pick your new macro from the list and add it to the desired spot in the ribbon. It's not perfect, but it does bring up a recent documents list.

Rename the macro and pick an icon to make it less ugly.

Well, I still see it on my 2013 QAT.  Actually it is a 2010 QAT that my 2013 is sharing.

I confirm that I do NOT see that command in the "All commands" list. Unfortunate omission!

“One of the customizations I do to the QAT is to add the "Open Recent File" command to it. “ 

Of the 20-some buttons I added to the QAT in Office 2010, the one I used more than all the others put together was Open Recent File.  My employer just force-fed us Office 2013, and the Open Recent File command has, apparently, gone away.  I’m hoping you can tell me you found a way to get it back.

I Think Word 2013 is better than Word 201.MS Office 2013 is completely included with SkyDrive, which means you’re able to access and perform actions on your files; anyway of where you’re located, as long as you have an Internet connection.

Your migration represents a huge learning curve, both Win 8 and Office 2013 (ribbon).

I agree it is unfortunate that MS has taken a large step back from it's former design strategy of "backwards compatibility". One Key Point to remember is that in-spite of the seemingly massive changes, most of the change is as you noted user interface / skins.  They are evolutionary rather than revolutionary.  So, in windows, most of your batch files and scripts will continue to work, maybe with minor tweaks.  In Office the core functionality is still there. The addon functionality is another issue. Again, many of your macros will continue to work.  3rd party stuff, you'll have to talk to the vendors. Unfortunately, with 2013 being so new some may not be ready for it. 

The best thing your company can do now is create a custom training program, either in house or with the help of a professional training company.

You have to identify the key pain points and provide a short training program that will get your users up to speed.  Make it a half day to full day for each window and Office.   Look at training programs that were created for the migration from 2003 to 2007.  Many are available for free on the internet for you to mine concepts from.  And most of the concepts still apply, with minor tweaks for UI changes from 2007 to 2013.

If I was setting up this sort of training I would feature 2 things.  First is the "Stop Clicking and Exploring Excel 2007 like a Newbie"  book. I found it really good for changing my attitude about the ribbon.  The other is provide them with one or more tools that will help them find where commands have moved.

One of the obvious pain points is customizing Office apps.  You have 2 options for that, the obvious one of adding buttons to the QAT,  AND  you can add new groups and tabs to the ribbon(s) (the second one wasn't an option in 2007, a real PITA).  Those customizations can be rolled out with the initial installs, or even retroactively applied.

One more link I didn't provide you with is this one that you may find useful for your 2003 custom toolbars

Use Word 2000/3 Toolbars in Word 2007/2010

http://www.gmayor.com/Toolbars_in_word_2007.htm

Final point. If I had complete control doing a corporate retaining / upgrade  course I would plan it in 2 parts.  An "intro" course to get them started, with a planned second ("advanced") phase, 3, 6 or 12 months later after they have had a chance to use it and come up with questions that apply to their day to day work.  Give them the opportunity to submit questions, and take common issues from the help desk to design the curriculum for the second phase.  Too many managers assume that all users (even non-technical "average" users) become "instant experts" after being given an intro course to any software. As a result, everywhere I go I see 1% of users doing "advanced stuff" (ie more complex than copy and paste), while the rest are still using their computers like digital typewriters (using tabs, spaces and paragraphs to layout documents) and glorified calculators.  As a result, most of the potential benefits of desk top computers is not being realized. Simply because users don't know how to do much more than press keys.  I'm not advocating that everyone has to be programmers or "macro masters", but there are lots of relatively simple concepts that they can be taught to make their jobs easier.

2010 and 2013 added a lot of functionality to allow "collaboration", things like controlled "work flows" and allowing more than one person to edit a file, even at the same time.  1 key to making this new functionality work is the company has to setup a SharePoint server.  Then IT has to do a bunch of stuff and users have to be made aware of it all ... But it represents a lot of potential time and costs savings for the company, that will probably not be realized.