I was curious. I also followed how various cell operators went down during the 12 hour blackout.

Apparently the cascade started due to a worker not following procedures in Arizona and isolating their section of the grid before a test and some transformer maintenance.

Fully agree with your assessment regarding ISO, have noticed we no longer have the rolling brownouts that came with ISO.... even though we now have fewer generation plants in the area.

One thing that really irritated the rate payers was how the operators (SDGE and others through mergers and acquisitions) asked for and were granted (by PUC) rate increases to compensate for profit losses to share holders (1% et. al.) when rate payers conserved power as asked by the operators. (SDGE) So profits were "guaranteed," but rates were not. The tail wagged the dog.