Controlling a heater using PWM and MOSFET

I've no doubt it can be made to work, but preventing it from interfering with everything else in the area and on that mains circuit would be a major problem. What do you see as the advantage over a phase angle SSR?

Have you tried using a zero-crossing SSR and switching it on/off potentially on every cycle of the mains? For example, when you want 50% power, instead of 0.5 sec on then 0.5 sec off (which might give a noticeable flicker), turn it on for 1 cycle, then off for 1 cycle, then on for 1 cycle etc.