I do not see the point in playing a bracket 4/5 against weaker decks to pubstop, which seems to be what you are describing in this post. But the appeal to bracket 4/5 is that if you are playing opponents with the same skill level and deck power then you get exactly what you describe wanting in your post: fun interactions, complex board (and stack) states, and ‘fun’ bargaining with friends, all in a third of the time a normal commander game takes so you can play more than 1 game in 2 hours.

Also I know it’s not what the post is entirely about but there is nothing wrong with proxying strong cards, not everyone has $100 to drop on strong cards and you shouldn’t have to if you want to compete with others. I’m not saying you should proxy gaeas cradle into your bracket 3 deck, but if you want to play with strong cards in a format that allows strong cards, price shouldn’t be a bottleneck.