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Does anyone intentionally make papers shorter in order to avoid grammar or reference errors?
I've pondered this, because it seems like it could be a good strategy. However it may come with pitfalls, such as not saying all that might be necessary.
But having fewer words and sentences would make proofreading easier and have a lower probability of errors happening in the first place.
What you are proposing is way more difficult than avoiding, detecting and correcting grammar and reference mistakes. Proof-reading is important but it is the easiest step of writing a paper.
You should in general not be able to make your paper shorter. If you make it shorter without losing any of your contents, you should have made it shorter for that reason. When you write a paper, it is already your goal to clearly and concisely. When you try to remove contents to reduce grammar or other errors, you're removing value of your paper.
From my experience reviewing papers (and for example, reading posts here on Academia), the length of the paper doesn't really matter when it comes to making spelling or grammar errors. Some people are just more prone to make them (due to being non-native speakers or other reasons), and they will make them no matter the length of the text. Sure, the overall number of errors will probably be smaller, but the readability of a shorter text doesn’t improve.
Instead, trying to force the content into a shorter text might even lead to a decreased readability and understandability because some vital information might be omitted to fit the shorter text. That being said, trying to say what you want to say in as an easy and short expression as possible is always great, because it will make understanding easier. But as Roland suggested, this is often more difficult.
If you don't feel confident with the language quality of your paper, instead of forcibly shortening just to reduce the overall number of errors, I suggest to try to find a person with good English and/or written language skills to proofread your finished paper prior to submitting.
There are good reasons to try to keep papers as short as possible while conveying all of the important intellectual content. The shorter your paper is, the more likely people are to read it; keeping your writing lean forces you to focus on the key ideas; etc.
Avoiding grammar or referencing errors, however, is not a good reason to write a short paper. For one thing, the length has no bearing on whether or not you have omitted relevant references. More to the point though, conveying the content clearly should be the main factor determining the length. (Along with length guidelines from the journal where you choose to submit the paper). If you aim for a different length for any other reason, you are necessarily sacrificing the clarity of you communication.
Does someone intentionally make papers shorter in order to avoid grammar or reference errors?
AFAIK, most people make papers shorter because they need to meet submission length limits. Given that, it doesn't matter what other possible reasons you might have to shorten your papers.
"Brevity is the soul of wit."
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Sure: Being brief is a good thing. Shorter is generally better and easier to read. It should be a goal when writing, especially technical and scientific writing, to express the idea as quickly and crisply as possible.
I do find that when I edit my writing, it often gets a little bit shorter as some clunky phrases or repeated wording turn out to be unnecessary and get removed. And redundant references are in fact a pitfall that things might fall out-of-synch when edited. But I broadly doubt that's a top-level priority for anyone when structuring their writing. The top goal is to be clear and expressive, and not elaborate more than is necessary.
That said, there is a practice in software development called refactoring which pretty much boils down to exactly the OP's intuition here -- take existing, functional program code, and edit it for readability and maintainability. In most cases this leaves the code shorter than when it started, and indeed more robust in terms of attack-surface for bugs and broken references.
In computer programming and software design, code refactoring is the process of restructuring existing computer code—changing the factoring—without changing its external behavior. Refactoring is intended to improve the design, structure, and/or implementation of the software (its non-functional attributes), while preserving its functionality. Potential advantages of refactoring may include improved code readability and reduced complexity...
