I see what you mean. Let me play along with this setup.

If we have approval voting just within the Orange group then the strongest candidates can still get watered down.

Envision the following candidates, mentioning just three of the ten to keep it simple.

Candidate A and candidate B are liked the most for their leadership and strength, yet voters liking candidate A don't want candidate B and vice versa.

Candidate C is considered the weaker candidate, but ends up winning the seat because candidate C is liked by more for non-politically empowering reasons. Leadership is missing but an Orange representative is indeed present. We could be happy with this result, but the voters are less empowered because an internal strive ended up aborting both 'better' candidates.

That is what I was trying to show with mixing orange, blue and yellow paint and then ending up with a grayish outcome. Something got washed down. The strongest Orange candidate is not picked and the Orange-grayish candidate ended up in the seat.

It is never smart to start negotiating from a position where you are looking for the political compromise right from the start. First, everyone has to take in their positions, and then negotiations can start.

In proportional voting per Thomas Jefferson, the voters decide what their strongest choice is. Even when candidate A wins 1 more vote than candidate B, then there will at least be a strong representative in the seat and not the weaker candidate liked by all. Orange will be represented by the strongest Orange there is.