This is very true - with qualifications. The qualification: The many little new things have to fit coherently into a larger plan or they will eventually put a drag on the project, as more and more problems keep competing for attention.
Obviously there's a nice guilt free way to deal with the qualification: Guilt free refactorings - clean up as new. Rewrite instead of fix. I've tried that one as well and sometimes it works other times it doesn't.