This is a really interesting discussion and my thoughts are that Heluva is on the money here. Everything else equal, stronger is better.
Without getting too deep in the weeds, a key contributor to athletic performance is an athletes ability to generate power, defined as as force x distance, divided by time. The controllable variables are force (aka strength) and time (aka speed, aka explosiveness/the number of motor units that can rapidly be recruited).
Explosiveness, tested by things such as the standing vertical jump is not very highly genetic & not very trainable. A 10% improvement would be considered significant.
Strength is highly trainable. A 300% improvement within 1-2 years is not unusual.
'Natural' athletes tend to have very high explosiveness. They excel at sport as children and are the ones who make the big leagues.
It would be a mistake to look at a natural athlete, observe that they are not neccessarily that strong and then summise that we don't need to be either.
Acquiring strength benefits everyone, but particularly those of us who are less genetically blessed.
If anyone is interested more about this, Mark Rippetoe has written a lot about it (see Starting Strength method & website).