We're not looking at instructions in a vacuum. No matter what you have both multiplications and additions happening.
So they're making a point that if you apply more multiplications before the inevitable addition, you are likely increasing the danger levels of that addition.
Oh, if one of the multiplications yields a positive number, and another yields a negative number of similar magnitude? That makes sense; I forgot linear spaces were over fields.
So they're making a point that if you apply more multiplications before the inevitable addition, you are likely increasing the danger levels of that addition.