I'd argue that incremental change strikes the balance between tearing something down and being paralysed by potential consequences. Also, you can only learn so much by passive observation. Eventually you have to apply a small stimulus (incremental change) and observe the response. If the response is bad reverse the increment.
Caveat is that if you reach a local maxima a more drastic change may be required, but the journey to the local maxima has probably taught you enough about the system that you can safely make the bigger jump.
Caveat is that if you reach a local maxima a more drastic change may be required, but the journey to the local maxima has probably taught you enough about the system that you can safely make the bigger jump.