After a fashion, yes John. The idea is the shortest simplest signal path to achieve your task. To me, it is more of an approach than an orthodoxy. I will put a mic to a machine with a good short quad cable. Add a preamp if needed, eq if needed etc...
At a more complex level. I will use an 8 bus mixer to do routing and sending, hardwiring where possible (sidechains) and you only use a few feet of wire, ground loops and hums are easy to isolate, no difference in potential. I can even use a portable Faraday cage on a small critical set up.
I took roughly five miles or wire out of my patch bays and interconnects, that is a lot to go wrong.
gino