Should search prioritize recent topics over older topics?

This is not a productive option. Why not integrate Google’s search features into Discourse if this is the option you propose? It also has the benefit of the Discourse team being able to focus on other aspects of the software and letting Google do what they do best.

I also find it somewhat odd that one of the choices for the technology stack was based around it’s superior full text search capability and now you suggest leaving the site to search via Google, completely negating that advantage.

https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-not-support-mysql/2568/3