This is definitely a struggle and dilemma for me too. If the redesign is for the sake of getting a manager's attention, I definitely get the rationale.

On the other hand, when they start asking questions about the design, I wouldn't have answers. It's even possible there's usability issues that didn't get worked out in the visual redesigns because I never tested them. It's easy to get stumped when showing the redesign, but it definitely catches eyes better.

I've thought about doing a study where it's basically "The Real Design vs How I Would Have Done It" but the whole study started reading very resentful by the time I got to the third screen, hah. I do think if you do it, it's best to make it a balancing act and have some transparency about what is what. How to execute that more specifically still has me stumped, haha