There are badges awarded ("excavator" and "archaeologist") for editing old posts; it is clear that encouraging this can improve the site by ensuring that as many posts as possible are written to a high standard. However, making a large number of edits to old questions in a short space of time bumps them all to the front page, which may not always be desired. This effect is especially pronounced if someone performs a large number of small or very similar edits.
Is making a large number of edits to old questions in a short time frame encouraged, particularly if all these edits are similar and near-trivial?