Agree with what you wrote: Often a seedling performs better once it has been propagated, exceeding the original seedling's vigor.
I got Yves seedling 'YVPXCHSL1' (bred by Robert Neil Rippetoe by his crossing Yves Piaget with his thornless Bohemian Rhapsody). Back in 2013, the mother bush produced both light pink and red blooms on the same bush. I was able to grow it from a cutting, and this cutting produces STABLE red blooms, a big improvement over the unstable color of the mother-bush. The mother bush also improved from producing both pink and red blooms in its first 2 years, to ONLY red blooms for the next decade.