[tracker1]

Tight coupling is generally considered bad practice, it leads to more accidental variance and complexity. In general adding either polymorphism, or additional methods to a class are considered safer. I'm not saying in your case it was the wrong choice, or that cleaning up design is bad.

Generally if you have to change a whole bunch of related files when you change one, it's an issue with the design.

[emmelaich]

Not sure you can know that without knowing the problem domain.

There's a tension there with one-and-one-place-only otherwise known as Don't-Repeat-Yourself.