I must be out of date.
Not at all
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I agree with what you say.
For me: I don't want to cultivate the Brassica patch at all, so I spread manure on it in the Autumn so the worms incorporate it over the winter, and I plant into it in the spring without any cultivation. I think I get more goodness into the soil this way, but the winter rains will inevitably leach nutrients out. I feed the Brassicas in the growing season anyway, so I'm more concerned about manure improving the soil structure than nutrients (perhaps less concerned than I should be)
For other crops I now adopt a similar approach, again because I want to adopt minimal dig. Beds here tend to only get dug when harvesting spuds or parsnips. I'm on heavy clay, and time was when I would rough dig, trenching the manure in during the digging, in the Autumn so that winter frost did the work. With slightly raised beds and heavy mulching with manure I have found that the soil condition has improved far more than I would have expected, plus I don't have enough time for the digging, so I've stuck with this approach. However, I have masses of manure from local farmer, so I'm not on a manure-budget and thus may not be comparable with someone who is.
I think its a worthwhile approach for Brassicas at least though to avoid cultivating the ground. Even on my heavy soil the ground is nothing like as firm in the spring if autumn dug, even if I stamp it down at planting time (well ... if it was sopping wet I could get it to form like concrete, but that wouldn't do the soil much good!) and after building the raised beds I had a few seasons of the sprouts being "blown" and then decided to abandon the digging.