Getting into the Groove (Orchestra content)

[Eduardo Barbosa]

This is my second season playing with a community Orchestra and I am loving the experience. I've been a professional musician for over 20 years mainly playing jazz. As you know after making so much money playing jazz I can finally afford to play classical music for fun! ;-)
Anyway, being that this is all new to me I have a question.
We perform about between 6 to 8 concerts every season. That is roughly one concert every month and a half.
We sight read the music on the very first rehearsal, which by the way always turns out better than I am expecting.
Then we don't run the piece until the dress rehearsal.
We work on very specific sections, bowing, tempos, intonation, etc.etc.
I feel that with each concert I get more into the groove of the orchestra. But I have been noticing that I take more advantage of the dress rehearsal. Although usually the dress rehearsal and the warm up before the concert become very stressful, because although we have been working on these small little sections we haven't really played together much at all.
I love the dress rehearsal because I get a real perspective of the piece as a total complete unity.
I wonder what everyone else's experience is like.
Maybe more of a balance between practicing the trouble spots but also running the piece could maybe be more beneficial at the end? anyone?