you actually made an excellent point yourself: It comes down to finding the strategies that work for you yourself. Writing options outright is in my opinion a terrible strategy, especially when one tries to make a living from that. Sooner or later the lightning strucks and you give all back and then some. When you want to use options to express a directional view then spreads are definitely the wrong choice. I find it funny how some guys say that almost nobody can pick direction but then they recommend i.e. spreads and list a whole lot of conditions that need to be met to make the spread position dominate others, performance wise. Isnt that contradicting? Again, each strategy has its place, but from what you wrote below I would also rather put on a outright call or put position. You can reduce size but thats more a function of your money and risk management than picking the right strategy. You could also play the skew by putting on a "risky" position which you could either run outright or initially delta hedged. The profit potential is however limited so is the risk vs an outright call or put position.
That's true. But, there is no reason not to make the effort to understand and then decide which is best for you. One real problem with buying options is you never know if you are paying a reasonable price. It's the current price and some believe that it must be a fair or reasonable price. Helpful hint: Sometimes the prices are so high that buying them makes succeeding so much more difficult. If you can learn a bit about implied and historical volatility, at least you can avoid overpaying for options. When bullish, if option prices are too high, you can still play by selling put spreads - limited profit, but better than sitting on the sidelines when you have an opinion on a stock. If you are especially confident in your market timing and directional skills, then you will do very well buying options. Mark