I agree that technically it's not necessary; very few things are. But that begs the question, why settle for a proxy? There are many who are willing and able to represent in an equally competent way, but with the advantage of being closer to the issues. There's nothing stopping those individuals from starting the same conversations and advocating for speaking up and empathy in the same way, they are just less likely to need a figurative, and sometimes literal, translator.

You've avoided saying explicitly whether aiming for more than what's "necessary" would be detrimental to overall efforts for progressive change, but the obvious implication of the argument is "yes". The whole "perfect is the enemy of good" thing. Something like "leverage the current not-so-representative individuals in power to solve the issues because getting new, more representative people in would be" somewhere between "wasteful" and "token", depending on who's talking. I believe this is the case not because it's what works, but because we've landed here after aiming for better. The middle outcome will always be the winning one. Aim for the middle and the winning outcome will just be worse.

Additionally, the reason I specifically mention visible representation is because of how much visibility plays a part in inspiring and motivating action from the people that identify with that visible person. The backgrounds and history of these people are known and it's a significant thing to see the background you share with them not only acknowledged, but vindicated as something that didn't hold them back in finding success.