More than once, I've gone into my Recruiting Summary page and tried to whittle it down, removing either ineligible players I no longer want to pursue or flawed players I've decided to forego in favor of another one I've found.

But in every case, I still get emails from my staff as to the status of the players I've removed and no longer care about.  And, just as annoying, if I do change my mind about a guy and find him again on search there's no way to re-add him.  I have to go back to my Summary page and "Show Removed Recruits", which puts every single one of the removed guys back on my list.

What am I doing wrong?  Also, is there a maximum list length or will having too many players shown also drop a few off the bottom?

I don't think you're doing anything wrong. That sounds right to me. Don't think that there's a max number of recruits you can look at. I've never hit it at least.

I usually make ones I am not interested in any more "Low" Priority. One's I am thinking about are Medium, and ones I am after are High. One's I have not taken any recruiting action on, I do not assign to high, medium or low.