The heaters are like $50-60 tops (so another $50 to compeletw the swt) and i also like the white noise aspect of them so they might even be justifiable even if they dont save an insane amount, but I feel likeyou said they form a middle road solution that pretty much almost certainly saves over globally heating the entire place up and there wont be any misery involved no matter which way it goes :)
My cats and I already love having one again so im very tempted to have one for both rooms and let the carda fall where they may