Heya Brook!
Looks like I marked this as answered prematurely. When I replace my function with a modified /tribe-events/pro/widgets/list-widget.php file with that change you suggested the widget won’t show any recurring events at all. When I go back to my function above it shows the recurring events as expected without all the extra stuff in the $tooltip.
So I guess I’ll either use my function or a little CSS hack for now. Looking forward to the updated version of the plugin where we can change that setting from the widget in the dashboard.