I chuckled at this bit:

The breakage should nevertheless be fixed as soon as possible, ideally before the breakage reaches Linus.

lol.. it does make it sound that they are trying to hide things from him, but I don't think that's the intention... it probably means "before the change that introduces the breakage has to be reviewed / tested / checked by the main person overseeing the releases (Linus)"

Reads more like if you made a mess as a kid and cleaned up before your parents came home. The state between when they leave and when they arrive is up for experimentation.

Yeah. Nothing about this is dishonest. It's just a normal dev cycle.