It all comes back to this response. https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/swingtrading-with-options.337599/#post-4957620
Mreh. @destriero Without trying to explain the whole context again, I hope you can get the gist from these couple screenshots...
OK, got it. Say you're bullish XYZ and vol is high. You could take an outright but you're concerned about being stopped out. So you go long spot at 125 and give it some time, intraday. Spot rallies to 128 near the close and you're intent on holding it but the index takes a shit. You short 2x the 140C and how you're short the (synthetic) straddle. Now you're looking at a 140 target and (strips) vols will inevitably drop if we rally across the board. You're up on the position as the call short was an opportunity gain (gained on shares and calls rallied). You've extended the position to the expiration on vol (potentially) and ostensibly can earn more from the vol-position than the outright share purchase, while reducing your deltas.
Or any time you're up on marks and you don't have the net liq to support the position (going from 4x to 2x overnight). You're long and you buy a garbage put and now you're long the synthetic call. No more variation margin.
Now this is the sort of thing where you'd need (or at least want) two monitors, or one of those huge curved ones, so you can watch the future on one workspace, and the option table on another workspace. I have bloody tunnel vision with my shitty little future world. There's a folks I've been sharing screen time with and watching his windows, and it seems like there is a lot of desktop space needed to work those option tables, in the dynamic way you speak about. Johnny-on-the-spot like stuff.