So far my bug count is zero. It CAN be done. It's just very hard work, but if you don't like hard work, change your career now. Bugs can ruin otherwise great games. failing to fix them, or fixing them after the event is not good enough. If i want to QA for Eidos, I'll apply.
Sequels are probably the most depressing example of money-driven publishing.
Tomb Raider sequels, and games like it, rely on people buying them as safe presents for people who they liked the first one. Sadly this doesn't mean the follow-on games are any better. There are exceptions, AOE2 vastly outshines its predecessor, and Mechwarrior3 is also a huge improvement. The problem is these examples get vastly outweighed by the vast sea of Command and Conquer sequels. When it is a tech demo.