Rethinking the Traditional Linear Revision Process

Every design-oriented work seems to follow the same process: create the work, present, revise. My question today is whether this is the best approach. Using this process, by the time the work is presented, it's usually pretty finished. Thus, the revise step seems difficult and seems to wrench the project off-track. What's more, even if you cycle through this process several times, in the hopes of getting better results, you are just repeating the same problems. Is there a better approach? I have an idea, rooted in hermeneutics, that might help. Instead of a massively linear process that drives toward a revision at the END, what if we introduced the revisions in the MIDDLE? Specifically, what if we made more, but smaller, revisions DURING the design process? This would, of course, require a substantially-different way of working for most designers. It would required a more collaborative approach with "non-designers" and even clients. But, it would, I think, generate better results. And it would create an acceptable solution faster, too.