SVC's are definitely "spendy" - - but you get what you pay for. Having separately isolateable [sp?] branches can be a really sweet feature that allows the SVC to return to service in a derated state if one branch fails, and do not under-appreciate the benefit of smoothly controllable voltage/reactive capability on system operation.
There are places where I wish the company had used two smaller HV caps instead of one big one; the grid has to be able to tolerate the all-or-nothing nature of switching big capacitors under various operating scenarios, and putting toomany eggs in one basket can be problematic.
As to switching caps, my utility only ever used a circuit switcher to switch a 230 kV cap in to and out of service in one location - and that was in a spot where the fault current infeed capability was within the capacity of the circuit switcher to clear a cap fault. There was also a separate SF6 breaker installed as a back-up to the circuit switcher, since all the other breakers in the yard were of the oil-interrupt type. However, due to planned future system reinforcement the circuit switcher was eventually replaced with another SF6 breaker [as part of upgrading all the other breakers in the yard from oil to SF6.
CR
"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." [Proverbs 27:17, NIV]
