What kind of diagram is most accurate in describing evolution?

Factual Questions
1

Usually you see cladograms with branching lineages from some hypothetical common ancestor at the base and subsequent generations and species arising from it. That would seem to be a pretty good way to describe a very specialized or isolated group, but wouldn’t it be more accurate (at least in regards to a larger range of species) to describe it using a kind of fractal design with the common ancestor at the center and all descendents (dead ends as well as successful species) radiating out from that center? Would a 3D model have any advantages in depicting those relationships more accurately?

2

As long as there’s a point for each species, and an arrow from point A to point B iff species B is descended from species A, any arrangement in the plane or in space is equivalent, at least as far as the information it contains goes.

3

The problem with that is the species are (technically) not discrete, and can’t really be represented by points on any sort of graph. For example, humans are different now than they were, say, 1 million years ago, but how many distinct species existed between then and now? At which points did those species occur?

My opinion is that any sort of representation using nodes and edges is a simplistic representation of what’s really going on, and may be a factor in leading people to misunderstand how evolution actually works.

4

So then the kinds of cladograms that utilize points are used to describe possible relationships between different species only in regards to those known in the modern world and through distinct specimens in the fossil record, right? I mean, if we want to provide a general model of how evolution has played out throughout history, we cannot use points because the forms are constantly in some state of flux, but if we are trying to plot a specific lineage based on fossil specimens and extant species, we can use points?

Kind of related: would it be considered accurate to describe hominid evolution in such a way that “Lucy” would be considered point “A” and Homo sapiens sapiens would be point “Z” (so to speak)?