All I can tell you is to keep at it..... it can be very discouraging... but there are profitable strategies you can stumble on.. if you simply plug in strategies you found in books and try to tweak them your going to be in for a long hard road... think creatively and out of the box.... try putting together strategies that goes AGAINST what you have come to expect from reading books and such and you might be surprised what you find.... Also, with the exception of only a few stratgies I have discovered, MOST stratgies are actually hurt pretty badly by stops..... regardless of what people may tell you, stops are not always a good thing... Good luck
Oddly enough I don't know any successful traders either automated or discretionary who utilize the exact same methodology with the exact same parameters indefinately. If you are really serious about being a strictly mechancial trader either automated or semi-automated, then you cannot trade off of market "hunches". That being said, I have a methodology in place to alert me when a system is going bad and when it does I simply replace the system with a re-optimized version or replace the strategy entirely as needed. If you've actually worked on a single system for 10 years good for you. I hope it continues to work into the future for you. I've had a great deal of success using my methodology and am quite satisified with it (which is really all I care about).
Yes, stay simple (less than 10 inputs) and try a longer time frame. Nearly every trader I know wants to trade 10 tick timeframes. You won't be ready for that until you have mastered long term and swing time frames first.
makcim, Read this thread http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=78053&perpage=6&pagenumber=1