Not sure if by "centralised recording" you are referring to the UK way or how it is implemented in general (civil law) but I can say that in Brazil the registry definitely does not have only the last deed.

In Brazil the books are append-only, they have the whole history of thay piece of land since records began. If it was a bigger plot that was dismembered, it is there too. When ownership changes you have to register the contract/terms of transfer/sale separately in a different process, but that does not change legal ownership and you still must go to the registry and register that registered transfer/sale in the registry, and the paperwork you get is a new certificate of registration which is a new snapshot of the books and includes that whole history from the very beginning. There is no copy or certificate you can can get from the land registry without including that whole history.

In the UK, the old common law rule does not apply to land that has been registered centrally, that is then the legal definition of who owns the property. However there are still properties that are not registered and for those, the rule you describe is still applicable; the holder of the deeds is the owner.

Registration is now compulsory on sales, but that only came in in 1990.

As to what I mean by binned, I mean literally binned, thrown away.