I wouldn’t say “strictly” but the old timings worked better for my memory.
Honestly, if there was some way I could know that it was an Apprentice 4-to-Guru 1 item in the review queue, and I could reorder it to the back, I’d let them sit in the pile for another day. I used to Master and Enlighten things back then. Since the changes, most items end up in an Apprentice-Guru-Apprentice-Guru-Apprentice loop before I can get them up to Master (I’m looking mainly at Kanji, since they’re the first time I get a reading and meaning, vocab still remain about the same, as usually they are jukugo using readings I already know or half-life by the time I get them.)