You sound like you have an unnecessarily complex strategy. I just buy stuff going up with no near resistance and let price prove me wrong. It's worked for me for quite some time.
Then why start this post if it has worked for you quite some time? Actually, as years pass, what you see now as complex becomes ingrained in your memory and it becomes like breathing. I am a Scalper first and just recently have made a system for longer profits so more of day trading. I have concentrated last seven years on losing very very small amount and this allows me to average down on each trade, increase size and lease seats. I love the challenge of getting losing percentages lower, trading has evolved for me over 32 years of intraday trading, where at one point you trying to just become profitable, to building up 401k to having enough for remainder of life to now being fun again and made it more of self challenges. I love automation as where as before I could only trade few markets at one time to possible sleeping in each day if I can to it watching 40 markets 23 hours a day. Complex? not at all.
No. Candles are worthless and add another interpretive level that traders don't need. They are too much information. --They are however touted to beginners as an end all.
True they both contain the same info. Candles just visually give a nano second quicker view or two bullish/bearish but not necessary for trading. That is they indicate quicker visually if the bar is a bear trend bar or a bull trend bar or a range bars. Bar charts do the same. Just might take a split second longer to see it. All bars are either trend or range.
%% That maybe an advantage, Vol, for bar charts,+ maybe why IBD uses them.LOL I like candle charts because they're easier to see + are simply same info. But leave it the WSJ to run a huge article [ a year or 2,ago, not a sell signal, LOL] about all the reasons some people do not like color red.