It fixes gradual precision loss only if you assume every value was perfectly precise to begin with, and if you never ever try to divide (or I guess use any oper

It fixes gradual precision loss only if you assume every value was perfectly precise to begin with, and if you never ever try to divide (or I guess use any operation other then +, -, and ×). 1 / 3 is still an imprecise number in decimal floating point. The only numbers I'd be reasonably certain of such a precision input would be financial values, and the precision loss still kicks in if you do operations as mundane as averaging values, let alone trying to do some linear algebra (as in doing operations analysis). By the time you get to a lot of scientific or engineering applications, your input numbers are already imprecise to begin with (and a lot of times, they're already coming from something like a 12-bit counter or the like).