I feel you re: bug repopulation. Sometimes it seems one may spend an entire day identifying and knocking down pages of bugs, then the next day comes and there are somehow even more!
This could be a result of increasing expectations however– as the game improves bug-by-bug, issues that wouldn’t have been considered bugs, or wouldn’t be noticed amidst the other problems, begin to stand out more.
I think this also happens as a game’s development period lengthens. Issues that aren’t considered a pressing in a 2-week production may really chafe in a longer / more well-resourced production that has grander ambition.