The title of this thread is a false dichotomy. There is not necessarily any loss in "quality" in making something more comprehensive. What you get rather is a bell-curve where the tailings have few, perhaps only one editor.
However if that one editor is moderately good at being a Wikipedian, they may be generating top-notch articles. Just ones with few other interested parties.
The idea that we need to stick to a smaller set of core articles in order to maintain quality has no evidence. Some of the articles with many editors are in sad shape.
Will Johnson
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