It's just that so many ICs have their GND and Vcc pins on the far ends... (4 and 8 for OpAmps, for example).
Luckily leaded parts are usually good enough.
Wth adjacent pins for power it'd be convenient to solder an SMD cap right on top of the power pins, next to the package itself, and just leave it in place in between experiments.
Yes but a lot of modern chips have power and ground next to each other or facing each other. For the chips that don’t there is less of an advantage using SMD capacitors but if you make the impedance to to the wire side it is likely to be better than a leaded part.
My prefrance is to have a ground track next to the power pin and solder the capacitor from the scocket pin directly over to the ground track. This can fit under the chip and not use up a hole row.
One thing that I ve noticed is that when circuits get more complex with many interconnections and wiring, stripboard prototypes are hard to debug once things don't work as expected.
You are never sure if the reason is a short /bad / wrong connection or the design itself.
Watcher:
You are never sure if the reason is a short /bad / wrong connection or the design itself.
Better than "solderless breadboards" then! 
Watcher:
One thing that I ve noticed is that when circuits get more complex with many interconnections and wiring, stripboard prototypes are hard to debug once things don't work as expected.You are never sure if the reason is a short /bad / wrong connection or the design itself.
The phrase "close visual inspection" springs to mind - always worth doing.
Paul__B:
Better than "solderless breadboards" then!
Yes quite.
With a solderless bread board you know you have a bad connection, so the first step in debugging is to jiggle the components up and down.