GNSS vs total station for large rural lots

Field guy here trying to learn as much as I can. The office staff are always helpful, but getting explanations from some of the other field crews can be hit or miss.

I work with an older surveyor who is a solid worker and knows his stuff, but he seems to have a strong dislike of using GNSS whenever possible. We work in a fairly rural area, and a typical job might be an existing house lot or old farm property. The front of the property is usually open near the road, with corners that are easy to access and observe. The rear of the property, however, might be a long distance into the bush through rough terrain, swamps, boulders, and dense vegetation.

His preferred approach is to use GNSS only where absolutely necessary. He might tie a corner or two at the front, establish control with GNSS, and then traverse everything else with the total station. On some jobs that means 20 to 30 setups to reach the rear corners, taking days of work and requiring a significant amount of line cutting.

Even when we can get a good GNSS fix in the back, he’ll avoid using it. For example, we’ll occupy a rear corner, collect a full 180-epoch observation, wait a while, then collect a second independent 180-epoch observation, and the two solutions will agree very closely. His view is that GNSS still has too much unpredictability.

My question is this: wouldn’t establishing control with GNSS and then traversing long distances through rough terrain, with short sight lengths, difficult setups, and numerous instrument moves, also introduce and accumulate error? It seems like every setup, backsight, and prism setup introduces another opportunity for error.

From an accuracy standpoint, which approach would generally be considered more reliable in this kind of scenario? A long traverse from GNSS control, or independent GNSS observations on the rear corners themselves?

Interested to hear how others handle this type of work and what the reasoning is behind their preferred approach.