We study, for a continuous linear operator T on an F-space X, when the direct sum operator T ⊕ T is recurrent on X ⊕ X. In particular: we establish the analogous notion, for recurrence, to that of (topological) weak-mixing for transitivity/hypercyclicity, namely quasi-rigidity; and we construct a recurrent but not quasi-rigid operator on each separable infinite-dimensional Banach space, solving the T ⊕ T-recurrence problem in the negative way. The quasi-rigidity notion is closely related to the dense lineability of the set of recurrent vectors, and using similar conditions we study the lineability and dense lineability properties for the set of F-recurrent vectors, under very weak assumptions on the Furstenberg family F.