Elections are ultimately simply a means to an end. If it were possible to create representative, benevolent, stable, and effective governments without going through the expensive, time-consuming and divisive pageantry of elections, then surely we would (or we should at least). Unfortunately that's not possible, so we look to elections to create those governments, and we craft our electoral systems to best achieve those ends (representativeness, stability, coherence, efficiency, accountability... I'm sure you can think of other values that are important as well). So while I think the focus on representativeness is important, it's not the most important value in the governments we want our electoral systems to result in. While it might be nice to allow a party that 2% of the population supports to have a couple of seats in the parliament, that generally detracts from the governments satisfying all of those other values. That's why I support relatively high and restrictive thresholds.
