Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with this. I use no groundbait tactics regularly on a particular stretch of the Warwickshire Avon that has a large head of small roach masking some larger specimens; I'll usually start a session with just trotted bread flake or a bunch of maggots and if the bites are consistent and quite easy to hit i'll stay with it all day and if I feed at all i'll only feed the most miserly amount of freebies imaginable .
On the other hand if I do feed, and often this is the best way to kick start a slow swim, Ill feed heavily for a short time to turn the swim on and when the bites start then I'll stop feeding altogether until bites dry up once more.
I also fish very big lobworms on the canal for the large roach it contains, also without groundbait of any kind to back it up. I have found that if I put groundbait on top of the worm then it will receive perch attention and the roach will not get a look in. On some perch free stretches you can cast a worm and leave it there for hours and hours - it will eventually get picked up by a roach and that roach will almost invariably go over a pound in weight.