Like how I have more than enough information to get one of my old accounts back but their Automated Response Forms reject everything. Even the moderators on the gmail support forums rejected my claims as well and pretty much said "deal with it".
That's what adding a recovery email is for: to deliberately weaken your account's security, in exchange for convenience.
If you disable recovery, then -- no surprise -- you won't be able to access your account if you lose access.
This post may seem unkind, but keep in mind that some people deliberately do not add recovery methods, in order to prevent secondary-takeover access; and that the above poster's request would fundamentally drastically weaken the security of those users.