Is Hex worth it at high levels?

[Psyren]

But 1 and 2 also rely on the "unintuitive behaviour" of killing a squirrel in the morning.

No they don't You can extend a Hex through a short rest without killing anyone, and reassigning a Hex to a new target is the entire point of it lasting as long as it does; if it wasn't reassignable, you might as well change the duration to "Concentration, up to 1 minute." Neither #1 nor #2 rely on unintuitive behavior to function.