On Tuesday in the (Hebrew) yated neeman, there was a letter from Hagaon Rav Meir Tzvi Bergman (son in law of rav shach and a member of moetzes gedolei yisrael).
I’ll translate some of it.
The title of it was “knowledge of the (whole) mesechta is the foundation of understanding the gemara”.
It starts off,
“That which has taken root today in the Torah world, that you finish a ‘zman’ having learned only a few daf of a mesechta- this is the way to forget Torah!
For sure a person must toil and understand, but the main thing is to learn and learn, another daf and another daf, to finish a mesechta and another mesechta. [Rav shach] would always say that without this, a person will remain an ‘am haaretz’.
It’s impossible to reach understanding before learning the gemara,and ‘Torah is poor in one area and rich in a different area’ [and therefore requires seeing more gemara]…
And it’s impossible to mechadesh chidushim without this…
I merited to see gedolei olam… I never saw anyone who became a talmid chacham, who really understood what they learned, who didn’t learn the whole mesechta and became a baki in it…
And it all depends on one thing- using time appropriately. If you are diligent and immersed in learning and use your time well, you can manage to finish the whole mesechta without taking anything away from the iyun…
Anybody who takes upon himself this idea, to encourage bnei yeshiva to strive to finish and know the whole mesechta and to utilize the time properly, is guaranteed the tremendous reward of those who are mekayem the Torah…”
There’s a number of good points that I left out since it’s hard to type right now. But it’s worth reading the whole letter (on page 10)
He definitely is favoring the approach promoted in the OP.