How to notate 3 quarters framed by eighths?

Question

Context: I recently transcribed a Piano solo piece in MuseScore 4. It was based on a different person's transcription that used ♩ = 70 as tempo marking. My transcription initially used the same tempo. However now I think the tempo should actually be ♩ = 140, so I used MuseScore's feature "Paste with double duration" to 'convert' the notes.

But there are some parts that look "weird" to me, but I'm unsure if its actually weird or really the best representation there is.

Here's the part in original:

As you can see the durations of the bass line are split up and tied such that the quarters are visually groupable.

This is what that part looks like after pasting with double duration:

What looks "weird" to me is that now obviously not quarters but just the half notes are properly visually split. I am not experienced in writing sheet music or playing by sheet, so I have no idea how people playing by sheet would feel about that.

If I wanted quarters to be visible, I'd end up with a lot of ties:

If I combine as many split notes as possible, I end up with essentially four quarters for the right hand and three quarters framed by eighths for the left hand, making most notes misalign:

Or I could make sure that every time a note is played by the right hand there's a corresponding aligned note for the left hand:

What would be the way people reading sheet music are expecting the durations to be?

Answer 1

Let's discuss the pros and cons of each version, albeit slightly out of order:

Version 3

This one is mainly non-ideal because of the half note that crosses the midpoint of the first measure. A sight reader could easily glance at this and think that the left-hand C occurs simultaneously with the right-hand F, which obviously isn't true. This is the least successful version.

Version 2

The rhythm in this one is very clear, but the notation is very cluttered, and cluttered to the point that I could easily envision a performer getting lost in all of the eighth notes, misconstruing which notes are articulated and which are tied, etc. This one is passable, but not ideal.

Version 4

This one is better than Version 3 because it de-clutters some of the eighth notes. I would argue that just about any musician would read this without problem, although they would probably find the left hand at the end of m. 2, with the four Cs in a row, to be a bit strange. This is fine, but it could be better.

Version 1

Notation to me is about clarity and efficiency, and I think this version handles both perfectly. The eighth-quarter-eighth rhythm in the left hand is standard fare for any musician worth their salt, so that syncopation won't present any problems. Furthermore, the left-hand ties into beat 3 show clearly how the right-hand melody aligns with the left-hand syncopations. This, in my opinion, is the optimal version.

Answer 2

No, your score is fine. There is no actual need to have a note on each beat, because you have something like a "beat grouping". A 4/4 measure will have strong parts (1,3) and weak parts (2,4). This means the meter actually can be felt as divided by 2. You ties make clear where in this subdivision you are. Mean while the figure 8th - 4th - 8th is a very common syncopation. So this is a rhythm any somewhat experienced musician should be able to feel within on macrobeat of this binary subdivision. If this was a more complex rhythm such as dotted 8th - 4th - 16th you should definitely split this in a way to make the 4ths visible. But in this case you do not need to do so, in fact it most liekly would become harder to understand the rhythm if you did.