Like you said, most of the time you save a good amount of money. The salespeople and marketing pamphlets emphasize that. Do you really believe that the executives at these utilities are ignorant to the fact that most of their customers don’t fully understand the implications? I think they sell the plans specifically because customers don’t understand them.
Worse for Texas, their system’s market pricing setup incentivizes power utilities to minimize their overhead capacity. The closer their supply is to demand, the higher the price they can get. But it leaves very little wiggle room for emergency situations (99% Invisible has a good episode about this). Therefore, their grid is more prone to spikes in variable rate pricing than other states.
Like financial instruments such as options trading, financial games like this make sense for the wealthy who have a cushion of risk tolerance. I can make more money faster with options trading compared to an index fund!
But for the median and below wage earner, sudden bill surprises shouldn’t be something that the government enables for basic necessities like utilities.