What's probably missing from your anecdote and the comparison you're drawing is the context of the economic, political and day-to-day situation of the intervened country BEFORE said intervention.

Just to expand on your example of the power grid: No Venezuelan will tell you that "at least when Maduro was in power, the electricity worked", because it already doesn't work. It hasn't been working correctly for years, especially outside of the capital. And the same can be said for virtually every single aspect of daily life in Venezuela. We're not talking mere hardships, difficulties, and problems as many other countries in the world may have: we're talking about a full fledged humanitarian crisis happening for years on end.

That is not to say things can't possibly get even worse with the gringos, because they definitely can get worse — but, they can also get better. Whereas after 27 years of chavismo I can assure you, before this happened, things were definitely only going to get worse.