@Renmar,
The problem is that the book has two examples, one right after the other that seem to contradict one another:
"Wombat is plugging away at some obnoxious gangers who
insulted his street name. He starts with 1 free point and has a
Strength of 3, giving him 2 points of compensation. He’s using
a Colt Manhunter with 1 point of recoil compensation, which
brings his compensation total to 3.
On his first Action Phase he fires a Semi-Auto Burst, which
is 3 bullets. That takes his compensation down to 0, meaning he
has no penalty on this shot.
On the next Action Phase he fires only one shot. That moves
his recoil penalty down one more point, making it –1. He has to
take a single die away from his dice pool before rolling his attack.
He then uses his other Simple Action to Take Cover. In the
following Action Phase, he uses a Simple Action to Take Aim,
which removes the effects of progressive recoil and resets his
recoil compensation back to its initial 3 points. (He also has the
option of increasing his dice pool by 1 or increasing his applicable
limit on the next shot by 1.)
On the fourth Action Phase he attacks with a Semi-Auto
Burst again, which again reduces his recoil compensation to 0.
Again, he has no penalty on this roll.
Starting a new Combat Turn, Wombat continues to fire. On
his first Action Phase of the new Combat Turn he fires another
Semi-Auto Burst. That’s 3 more bullets fired, moving his recoil
score from 0 to –3. He has to take 3 dice out of his pool before
rolling his attack.
On his next Action Phase, Wombat again fires a Semi-Auto
Burst. That means his recoil score drops by 3 more points, taking
the penalty down to –6. He’s going to have trouble hitting
anything, but he’ll probably stop shooting soon so he can reload."
In the above example, you'll note that simply by taking two non-shooting actions in a row, even ones that occur in two different action phases, he resets his progressive recoil.
Now look at the next example:
"Full Deck prefers the extra hitting potential of firing in bursts
with his Ingram Smartgun. His Strength of 4 gives him 2 points
to add to his 1 free point of compensation The Smartgun adds 2
more points of recoil compensation, making a total of 5.
On his first Action Phase Full Deck fires in Long Burst mode.
6 rounds are subtracted from the 5 points of recoil compensation,
meaning he has a –1 dice pool penalty when he fires.
On the next Action Phase he goes for Burst Fire. That’s 3
more bullets, so it makes the recoil penalty –4. The accumulated
recoil is starting to stack up, so he may want to think about not
attacking in the next Action Phase."
If two non-shooting actions in a row reset progressive recoil, then when he acts in the second Action Phase, he can shoot the burst, and then Aim (or Observe in Detail, or any other Simple Action) and then in the next action phase, Aim again (or whatever) and the progressive recoil is gone, and he would not have to "to think about not attacking in the next Action Phase" as he can reset his recoil.
It is like two different people read the rule, and then wrote the examples separately, and never read each other's work.