I think as you get more experienced, what is considered a "small step" changes as you're able to keep more context in your head (subconsciously of course). For the complex library example, that would be keeping the new vs the old architecture at the forefront of your mind instead of switching all thought to "const? maybe? what does that mean in this context?" and "how can I get rid of this reinterpret_cast?"

Absolutely agree with "Instead you should write code in a way that it's easy to get back into it" though!