One downside of proportional representation is that it gives a lot more power to the parties to choose the winners. I'm not sure if voters would be comfortable

One downside of proportional representation is that it gives a lot more power to the parties to choose the winners. I'm not sure if voters would be comfortable with that. In the present U.S. system, a person can run as a Republican or a Democrat without the blessing or support of their party and win. I think that's a good feature to keep the party turning into some sort of "this guy and all his friends" club. Granted, if there are more parties to choose from there's more opportunity for voters to reject dysfunctional parties, but it's not inconceivable that you might end up with, say, five dysfunctional parties instead of two. I suppose a sensible hybrid system might be to have voters vote for their party in the regular election, and then for each party with one or more seats, that party runs a primary (via a multi-winner variant of approval voting or STV or something) to elect the people who actually serve in those seats. Does anyone already use a system like that?