Why does Instagram refuse to show the most recent follows at the top of the following list when I want to see who someone followed today or this week, not six months ago, and is there any setting I am missing or a simple workaround that actually gives me a clean date sorted view without me having to scroll through hundreds of random profiles?

Instagram does that on purpose to keep you inside the app longer. There is no setting to fix it. But there is a workaround I found. A friend showed me a website where you can see latest followers instagram in the correct order from newest to oldest. You just type in the username and it pulls up a clean list instantly. No login, no scrolling through hundreds of random profiles. I use it all the time now and it saves me so much time. Way better than fighting with the Instagram app. Give it a try.