Personally I feel the same way. I don't think CPEC is for the benefit of either countries from the beginning. It was a poorly thought out framework for short term benefits and is designed obviously to satisfy China's requirements. For China its aim was to create routes in infrastructure through Pakistan to Indian Ocean ports and to be able to reach Iran and other middle eastern energy rich countries. The price China paid is also tremendous since the interest on the loans to Pakistan are some of the most lenient in terms of interest overall and timeframe. It also allows Pakistan to default on loans without taking much in terms of collateral. IMF or American loans would essentially take control of your country for collateral.
As for Pakistan, it is of hardly any use. The infrastructure projects to me seem just to serve one purpose and that is to reach the Chinese port in Gwardar and have routes towards Iran and others of the region, as a land route for the sea lanes that serve this energy trade purpose. Pakistan pays for it in the price of loans which they cannot realistically pay and in return for projects that itself has little use and benefit from except in higher strategic partnership with China which comes at the cost of negative US attention and action even.
As for striking a balance between US and China, I don't think it's that possible in the strategic realm. You cannot occupy both spaces or reach a compromise both those countries are satisfied with. Therefore you either are firmly strategic with one or the other and at best neutral with the remainder. Pakistan has clearly selected firm strategic partnership with China over US, at the cost of strategic partnership with the US. We see this with more weapons sales, more exercising together, more dependency (it is one way but it is what it is). The reason for this I'd speculate to only be due to India and possibly Pakistani elites believing the US is on a major decline and given another 20 to 30 years, the world is going to shift towards either a new hegemon or a multipolarity which still relatively puts Pakistan's interest in better position if it aligns with China. Perhaps it understands the costs of these short to medium term projects as overall negative or producing little benefit but in understanding the entirety, they are actually seeing 50 to 100 years or longer. Pakistan being a closer ally of China becoming established now during its final phase of developing and rising to the top. Believe whatever one prefers but the information and data are quite clear honestly. No matter the comments online about copy pasting toys. I mean surely if you analyse this stuff you realize China is much more than copy pasting and much more than toys.