Unless HH, HL, and HH are adjacent to each other, you're missing my argument. I only need 4 contiguous points to calculate a trend quality indicator. Can a trend line reasonably be defined by 4 contiguous points? Rhetorical question. The only honest answer is "Hell No!" Case closed.
I'll give a few reasons why it matters: 1) If I'm looking to make money capturing trends, I need to know that trends exist. Maybe it seems obvious that they do, but it would be nice to verify every now and then. 2) If I'm picking markets to trade as a trend follower, it would be nice to know if there are markets that consistently trend more than others so I know where to spend my time. 3) If I'm trend following a certain market and not doing so well, I can measure how much it is trending and see if the reason I'm not doing so well is because my method sucks or because the market sucks. I don't know how you could accomplish any of this without an objective measure of trendiness.
Consolidation can be a very short affair, two bars sometimes... trading across the sideways channel that is consolidation is hard enough to do and when the consolidation ends you are going to be on the wrong side of the last trade across... you are guaranteed one losing trade if you are scalping across the consolidation channel.. some think it far better to detect the ending of a trend, use the consolidation period to get a good price for entry to the next trend by watching the consolidation channel.. that improved entry price guarantees that your loss will be smaller if you get the direction wrong and your gain will be greater if you get it right and you can skip the hassle of scalping across the sideways channel
Consolidation differs from chart to chart but you are correct about it being fickle in length. I've adjusted my day trading algorithms so the shortest my consolidation period signals have been are 2 days, trading the Euro FX (example). In the last 15 months I've had 7 consolidation periods of 2 to 3 successive days only. The rest have been solid trending days, either Bull or Bear. About 20 consolidating days verses approximately 300 trading days isn't bad and I can even signal whether the consolidation will be bias long or short. I've had a total of 27 trend reversals in the last 15 months which is an average of less than 2 per month. My longest trend lasted for 3 months, which was a bull, with a 2 day down consolidation period about in the middle of it. I've created a day trading system that triggers a select handful of trades per day in the direction of the designated trend or designated consolidation area. (always less trading in consolidation areas) I'm not interested in scalping. I feel, for the most part, those charts types assess too little data for accurate trend and strength information. I absolutely agree the you can get your butt handed to you scalping.
Mr Hershey, nice to meet you. I'm familiar with SCT in that I have some friends that trade it successfully and I know the foundation which you build from. That being said I prefer not to trade assessing the chart information bar by bar. I've successfully conquered chart construction as to not take my view down to that level but still pull consistent daily and weekly profits from a chart. For now we can call it the "hippy" version of what you do. I do chart evaluation at an oscillation level, not a bar level. I need a whole lot less coffee to trade my stuff than would be needed to trade yours. My charts give me maybe 4 trades over an eight hour period but I only trade for about 4 hours. I've watched someone trade SCT and it gives me a headache. Hey, we were both profitable and consistent. More than one way to skin a chart, right!