Thanks to Martin for being the first to take the leap from talking about composing to actually doing it.
If two variations are rather similar, they can be used in interesting ways to contribute to the structure and flow of the overall piece. Beethoven has a great example of this in the 32 Variations in c minor (WoO 80). The theme is 8 measures long. Having two or more consecutive variations based on the same idea keeps the piece from sounding too "blocky" (how's that for a technical term...) and feeling like it is stopping after every eight measures.
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