Using the Work items option to search for project work items I get a filtered result

Hi

To have a quick look at project work items I frequently used the "Work items" option instead of "Queries" since it is much more flexible and quick. However, recently I noticed many of the work items disappeared from the results. Digging a bit I found the below description when choosing the "updated recently" option on the drop-down menu with regards to how many work items appear in the search.  

@RecentProjectActivity 1

Use with the ID field and In operator to list work items that have been recently updated. The number of work items listed depends on the work tracking activity of the project. For highly active projects, the macro will list work items that have been updated in the project within the last 30 days or so. For less active projects, however, this list could include work items older than 30 days. You can view similar lists from the Work Items page, Recently created, Recently updated and Recently completed pivot views. The number of work items returned is capped at 5000.

I fear that the project somehow became tagged as "highly active" and now many of the work items are filtered in the search.

My question is:

a. Can I change the @RecentProjectActivity  to be longer than 30 days? or maybe re-define my project as "less active"? 

b. is there a work around that can show me all the work items in my search without any limitations from the drop-down options? 

Thank you

Zachi