Thanks for commenting.

The primary problem with the other analogies is that they don't use real objects. Physics is the science that studies objects that exist, after all. That means we can't be crashing concepts into one another (like charge reification, for instance). It's important to begin physical explanations with objects instead of concepts, so we advance the atom.

While this depiction of the atom isn't the end-all-be-all atom, it's a step in the right direction, hopefully.