Well, how do you normally enter your stop orders? Stop market or stop limit? And if stop market, does it always get fillled at the bid or the offer of your choosing? Nope. And if you happened to use a stop limit, especially when the market is volatile, good luck even getting in at the specified price. You'd be better off just paying for the slippage.
The vast majority of my entries are made with stop markets. I could probably get cute and enter with limits on a pullback, but the amount of slippage is negligent to missing out on the trade completely if it doesn't pullback.
Getting in the trade is not even an issue. Getting out of the trade because you were wrong and price is moving fast against you is another matter entirely. That's what I'm talking about. Every second matters, especially when the market is tanking for example. You don't wanna dick around just because you wanna save yourself a few ticks. That few ticks will cost you way more in the end.
One thing to think about, if I may. Most participants are buying/selling ES as a hedge. Their portfolio has a beta, and they're in this trade to manage it. Nooby retails seem to forget that. They seem to think that everyone buys in order to sell at the bid/ask. Or even, that large groups are flat, short, and levered long all in the same session, outright and specifically GLOBEX. However, most of them are simply rebalancing their hedges. Sure, every FCM is trading all day for every reason under the sun, but their clients are not playing the same way. They already own stock. They have longs. They've already shorted stock, they have shorts. That's why they're involved.