But what use have multiple versions of the same project if in the end only 1 survives and the rest is basically pointless
To get to see how different devs develop the same game differently. Your mindset seems to be somewhat too competitive for this kind of jam (which is perfectly fine, just doesn't seem to be the right kind of jam for you then). To me, the whole point is a cooperative building of games and to see how games can turn out differently if different people work on it. Most of the games I saw were perfectly playable day 3 and a valid jam game by then. Why do they necessarily need to reach day 6? So that a few of them are in a blackthornprod video? So that they get high ratings? To me that's a nice plus. The way is the goal here, not the destination.
I don’t think I am being too competitive. Of course I really had fun working on all of this. It is just disappointing putting multiple days into multiple projects, pulling all-nighters because you just want to make it right just to be some branch on a tree, which doesn’t matter and could’ve been cut right off. It is frustrating and I think the main reason why so many people jump off the Jam the next day. The next Day of the Jam shouldn’t go to the next iteration directly but do Day 1 again with the ones that didn’t get picked the previous day until nothing is left. Then repeat for each evolution step.