@lime OK, I'm not sure how the KP-transformation would affect these things. Do you specifically think it's likely to be any worse than any other transformation, or is it general concerns about any transformation that hasn't been demonstrated to pass these things?
In any case, I definitely think PAV + KP is better than RRV or SDV because of its scale invariance, and I don't see any particular advantages of these methods over it.
There is also the probabilistic transformation, which I see as inferior to KP as well. Someone might give scores of 9 and 1 (out of 10) to 2 candidates A and B respectively. KP would split the voter as follows:
0.1: -
0.8: A
0.1: AB
The probabilistic transformation would give:
0.09: -
0.81: A
0.09: AB
0.01: B
This wrecks both Pareto dominance and scale invariance.
By the way, COWPEA fails the multiwinner Pareto criterion in the example I gave above, so might have core failings as well. Certainly in the IIB version of core (where you ignore voters who are indifferent between competing sets and just look at the proportion who favour each one of those who have a preference), it would fail. But I don't see this as a failing of COWPEA, just a different PR philosophy.
By the way, since PAV with infinite clones passes core (which it doesn't with a limited number of candidates), I presume the optimal version probably is properly proportional (passes perfect representation). I might update my paper with this in at some point.
Also, in the optimal scenario, both Phragmén and Monroe would be unsuitable as contenders. Both would be indifferent between an infinite number of different candidate proportions. They are concerned only with perfect representation, and this is very easy to achieve in the optimal case with any proportions allowed, and they have nothing to say to distinguish between them. Monroe is also essentially the Hamilton version of Phragmén (which can be made D'Hondt or Sainte-Laguë), so essentially the same but with more IIB failures.