Too short a text?

I was a bit concerned recently when I found that a church I hugely respect had been going through the letter of 1 Peter for the last 7 months and were only just beginning chapter 5.
It's wonderful to preach through the books and letters of the Bible. All that was said was true and helpful. But is there a danger in only taking three verses at a time? I think there is.

1. You're likely to lose the flow of the letter. 1 Peter only takes 16 minutes (max) to read out loud. That is how the first readers would have heard it. That's how it's meant to be experienced. Certainly there's a place for more detailed study but there is a great danger we lose the flow, the themes, the life of this living letter.
2. If you preach for 45 minutes on 3 verses you're likely to be bringing in all sorts of cross-references, lots of systematic theology. In fact the verses of 1 Peter itself are probably going to be only a small proportion of your content. So the great danger is that I'm not really hearing 1 Peter speak for itself; I'm hearing a theological exposition of themes related to those verses of 1 Peter. It's a springboard to other things. Now, if the preacher has sound theology that's not too dangerous, but if not we're going to be in trouble. And even if the theology is sound, I want to hear the Bible speak for itself please.
3. A final concern is that this sort of preaching looks very impressive. What I mean is that when I hear someone preach from 3 verses for 45 minutes, make 25 cross-references and pull out loads of clever things then I feel, "I could never do that." It takes the Bible away from the person in the pew and says, "This is a very complex thing that only the experts can do." Wouldn't it be better to preach a chapter or two, let it speak for itself, and let people go away saying, "That was so obvious, even a small child could understand it, didn't the Bible just speak for itself?"

And for a bit of historical perspective, here's Christopher Ash on Peter Adam's discussion of Puritan preaching (in England in the 17th century):

I was particularly interested in the section where Peter analyses some of the weaknesses within the Puritan movement (in the context of course of tremendous admiration for such very great men). In particular, he shows how their preaching developed some of the characteristics of Medieval Scholasticism, a detailed, highly intellectual, and overly "precise" analytical treatment of very short texts, in such a way that the Bible itself was swamped by the systematic doctrinal overlay and multiple applications. Peter comments that, "It was a pity that the Puritans largely adopted this style of preaching, because John Calvin had created a new style of expository preaching that was simpler, more accessible, less detailed, more straight-forward, easier to follow, and shorter!" (Adams, Gospel Trials in 1662, pp17,18).