You're not doing Agile right if you're not addressing your biggest risks

> The purpose of an agile process is ultimately to "de-risk your investment" as much as possible.

This idea really rings true to me. Tight iteration/feedback loops are key. Each cycle should introduce value -- either in the form solving user pain points, or providing product learnings on the way to solving user pain points.

Yes, in the end it might amount to more overhead each cycle, than if the team had put their head down and focused purely on producing. But: you end up where you actually want to be! And despite however confident you were at the outset, where you want to be is probably different than where you thought you wanted to be. With Agile you get to learn that part along the way.