I guess you're conflicted between volume versus authority, and I honestly have the same conflict, sometimes.
There are some big names who do nothing but put-out a small number of higher quality pieces of content, a small number of times per year.
There are some big names who do the opposite, and blog everyday, or multiple times everyday.
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From experience, I will say that long-tail posts, and rapid content, are great at getting low volumes of consistent content, but it can take a lot more work to make those add up.
Despite what it seems like, when you look at a keyword research utility, there really are only so many long-tails for any given niche, and at some point, you have to start getting really creative, and you have to find multiple venues for lower-level content that has any kind of value, in terms of impressions.
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So, you can't just do one thing forever, I'd argue.
Most of my experience, to-date, has been with these low to midrange terms, and that's enough to make a living, but I have come to realize that there is a better configuration.
I think it makes sense to focus on building a small number of super high-quality pieces of content for the most high-level terms, and then as you do your short form content, you use those to point into your higher level content.
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It's not a new strategy, by any means.
Personally, I just haven't even attempted any larger terms for my projects, because it always just seemed like a waste of time, but at some point, that's all that is left.
So, build your authority content... maybe just a few pieces, and then you can focus on using your short form content to boost your power pages, so-to-say.
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You do both, but you set them up to work together.
There's also something to be said for the fact that more authoritative content has the ability to stand on its own.
If you can make something that can sell to your traffic, then you can technically spend less time waiting for profitability, if you use other traffic sources while waiting for your SEO.
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It depends on the niche and the model, etc, as some sites, like maybe image sharing sites, would benefit more from volume, but even then, you'd still have a small number of money pages, maybe with a strong headline, and multiple high-quality images, designed to rank for a big term.
Then, all of your lesser image shares would go to juice your money pages.
I think it works for any model, even models that focus on volume.
, besides that, white hat methods(that I like most) are for me personally best methods for long term ranking