Yeah. If you have a real powerhouse/heavy-hitter, either you have leverage they can't take away from you, you're treating them like absolute royalty, or both.
-The first one invites an eventual yet inevitable betrayal, as we saw with Concretia - if that had been her family instead of her body, she could have played it out pretty much the same way by defecting in exchange for help.
-The second is expensive, and eventually risks you either being out-bid, or the super you're paying to work for you deciding they should just have your job and call the shots instead.
-The third is the trickiest to navigate, because you have to get the exact correct ratio of carrot to stick for that specific individual to avoid pushing them one way or the other. Overt carrots and subtle sticks are better but again the ratio of overt to subtle needs to be carefully calibrated.
-And ultimately, there is still a power threshold past which no amount of stick will help. If you tried to take Max's loved ones hostage to compel her behavior, you'd get speed-blitzed into constituent atoms even if you had a small army aiming guns at them 24-7.