Dunno about old Don, he just reminds me of a salesman. Low on info and high on sales. Was reading about Floored where computers were made to be villains. Of course, I read about floor trading and dreamed a bit about it. But, reality is those guys didn't have the real skills of speculation. A real speculator can call the market on many time frames. I.e I can call on 1 day, 6 months, etc. If they had the skills then they could be trading on the screen like anyone else. So, in that respect, they just get to trade on same level as everyone else now or maybe they were doing some sort of brain dead arbitrage.. something so simple that could be automated and copied by a thousand others. HFT doesn't seem to influence the non scalper traders. But, it probably does impact scalpers and those who like to use limits. I don't have a problem with HFT provided it isn't predatory or taking advantage of select info. A simple fix would be to limit the requote window or make all orders sit on the book for a minimum period of time. You quote, you gotta sit on the book for 1/2 second.
There are huge changes coming in the HFT and trading business in general over the next 2 years. Just be ready. surf