Not to take away from an otherwise very well penned and thought out post I would comment on this quote
"Technical analysis: obviously very week. However the greatest profit can be made if one can hit the inflection point (ie the bottom). By the time a new trend becomes evident, then obviously the best profit has been forgone, because one didn't buy at the bottom."
Anyone who says they consistently buy at the bottom or sell at the top using technical analysis is either born lucky or is telling porky pies .
( IMO ) T/A is used to capture the bulk of an uptrend after a confirmed or likely bottom and to get out early in a new downtrend after a confirmed top - in A2Ms case it had multiple tops around $20 . on all of my metrics there hasn't been a buy signaled since the sell generated around $17 .
(20min delay)