There's no way to entirely avoid breaking compatibility. If you allow small API breakages then at least all of the team is aware of the possibility and designs

There's no way to entirely avoid breaking compatibility. If you allow small API breakages then at least all of the team is aware of the possibility and designs their processes to handle backwards incompatible changes. If you design your processes assuming backwards compatibility then you'll run into the 1-in-1000 case where it's not possible and have to stop everything to handle the major update. Are you saying that it is better to have to deal with a bunch of tiny changes, so that when you have to deal with a big change you'll be used to it? If so, I strongly disagree. I would much rather have to deal with a big annoying change every 10 years, than a small annoying change every 6 months (which would still likely need the big one every 10 years).