With the exception of Hungary, the graphs don't look to me like a "swing to the right" so much as a "swing to the margins"; the centrist parties are losing votes to both "far right" and "other" parties.
I just wish they picked different margins to swing to...
Yes and no. The median voter theorem suggests that voters' choices were accounted for as parties put their platforms together -- effectively, voters chose, but not when they thought they were choosing.
I just wish they picked different margins to swing to...
I think there's a problem caused by voters swinging to margins, no matter which margins they swing to: It increases the gap between the voters and their government (either because extremist voters don't like a moderate government, or because one group of extremists hate a differently-extreme government), which diminishes public confidence in the state. Much like a lack of confidence in the justice system, a lack of confidence in the state tends to have very negative consequences, as people "take matters into their own hands".
Does it help if you have someone who accurately represents you, but she is marginalised within the legislature and has no chance of ever being part of the government? If anything, I'd expect that to make you trust the government even less.
Their standpoints get watered down a lot already after the election when they need to negotiate coalitions, I'd prefer if they were further apart beforehand so it would be easier to make the choice.
Which is that all centrist parties have shifted right in their policy positions and rhetoric.
The charts only show power shifts between parties, but ignore shifts within parties. There's a lot of centrist parties that were rooted in Christian values for example, that were reasonable on e.g. refugee issues in the 20th century (which were much more significant than today, by the way), that now want to amend laws, retract long-standing treaties, create walls and border fences, disallow schooling/work/status for those refugees who do get welcomed so as to send them right back asap in god knows when Syria recovers from being a failed state, paired with hints of xenophobic rhetoric akin to a far right party. Yet they're still deemed centrist parties, and would not show it on the chart.
And that is precisely because the far right is on the rise, and the rest of the political spectrum is adjusting and compromising their stance, so as not to lose votes. That's a very clear shift to the right.
Like take the Netherlands, it shows a drop in the right-wing PVV's size since 2010 (forget for a moment that the party's currently leading in the polls). You'd think, alright no shift to the far right here at all. What it doesn't tell you is that the current biggest party (a non far right wing, right wing party) has shifted much more to the right. Like recently we saw it's 2nd in command claim refugees were visiting the Netherlands to get plastic surgery, breasts corrections, face lifts etc... I mean this guy is just a ridiculous demagogue, instilling fear into the Dutch population that Syrian refugees aren't actually running away from a gruesome war, but are merely looking to exploit our medical system to get plastic surgery, it's insane. If you'd have set this about jews during the holocaust there'd be no discussion, you'd recognised as a clear far-right fascist. And this is the biggest party's 2nd in line, straight out the playbook of a far right-wing demagogue.
Now this party isn't far-right for all intents and purposes, but it has very much shifted towards it on various policy positions and rhetoric, as have many centrist and right wing parties. And none of that shows up in the charts.