Actually the opposite is true.
The fossil record shows large jumps in morphological change with very little of the gradual species to species change. (although there is at least one very good bivalve species to species sequence, and gradual change of extant species is ubiquitous)
It was this gradual (gradual in distance between steps not gradual in time) change that PE was developed to explain. The idea behind PE is that a species can stay more or less stable for extended periods of time and then under pressure rapidly experience substantial morphological change. This would mean that due to the rarity of fossilization, fossils showing this rapid change would necessarily be missing.
As an exercise someone out there might calculate the probability of discovering the fossil of a specific species.
It must be pointed out that even Darwin suspected that rates of change would vary during a species' lifetime.
Note: Gradual change is not synonymous with an even change rate but of the accumulation of numerous small morphological changes. The main mechanism of change is selection which is never consistent. This means that the rate of organismal change will vary at a rate similar to environmental change.
When an electron goes from one energy level to another it doesn't do so gradually, it jumps when some 'preset' threshold of energy is reached. I suspect a similar thing occurs with species, but I'm sent for six to see how it could happen. Patterns, macro processes, are the way Nature appears to express. I'd like to comprehend the large pattern process involved in species differentiation/evolution of life on planet Earth ... I think I apprehend the genetic process involved in expression of species and even perhaps the 'cause of different expression for organisms'. Perhaps I've gone too far already in trusting civil discussion ...