Are integrated amps technically better than separates?

Not to say the there's not deals on integrated, just not as many.
I Wonder why?

Price conscious (emphasis on conscious) value buyers tend to think longer term and tend to buy integrated amps. All the advertising, profits, and sales are geared up for separates. Consequently separates buyers tend to be less value and long term oriented. The fact of the top end of the market being people who actually consider a high price a value in and of itself drives separates far more than integrateds. All these things combine so of course whether they are realizing their mistake or chasing the next big thing either way there's gonna be more separates being sold than the market can support, and so there go the prices. Down. Where they should have been in the first place.

So I would be interested to see what the answers would be if the OP had specified "at the same price point."

Which is why I answered the way I did. These sorts of questions are without qualifiers pure flights of fantasy. The OP at least did qualify it a bit by asking about connections. Still that is not much of a limitation. As anyone can see already we have not only separated into pre-amp and amp but even more separate boxes for power supplies for the separate pre-amp and amp.  

I get why no one wants to talk about total cost. Throw in total cost, require people to actually listen to the whole package, it suddenly becomes very hard to find separates that even come close. But hey flights of fantasy are fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH7hj1nauTc

Saddle up your unicorns!!

I'm thinking the integrated could actually be an improvement over separates due to being a more "direct" connection. Taking away the flexibility factor of separates, is my line of thinking correct?

It is. To match the performance of a good integrated amp requires a very good and high quality (read: expensive) interconnect between the pre amp and amp. To say nothing of another quality power cord. Add in the cost of the extra PC and IC and its still possible to get better performance, but only by spending vastly more money. 

If you're like me then and you care about performance per dollar the integrated amp really is the only way to go.
 https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367