Yes, you are missing much. Patterns? You mean like the same ones evident in any data set including random? I'm happy this belief system still prevails among "tradeRs". Makes it easier for the rest of us.
No patterns means no trading. Most patterns are random, this is true. Some patterns are not random. Good systems separate non random patterns from random. Make order out of chaos it is called. There is program to find many patterns in data with your preference of parameters. Example of a very good one is this program. Your job is to find which are random and which are good for trading. No patterns, no trading. Eveything should be automatic with fast computer. Charts are good only for long term lay back investors, not for traders.
If the above was true, all would be good and easy. Patterns are ever changing just enough to make every entry random. It's how you manage the entry that makes the difference. You can only see the pattern in the past any how, either you were in it or not Programs like you listed are nonsense since these ta patterns are not even defined properly let alone tested to show probabilities. Bukowski book doesn't hold up and is snake oil to the masses.
The human brain is in 2010 and will remain for the foreseeable future, a better patten recognition system than any algorithm yet devised by man. I base this opinion on the billions of dollars spent annually by business and government in their attempt to devise algorithms to analyse patterns and devise metrics from which decisions can be made. And the thousands of hours spent in my career devising and evaluating algorithms of my own and evaluating algorithms by others for pattern metrics in industrial and trading applications. The trick in trading is producing visualizations of market data in a way the brain can see patterns that an algorithm can subsequently produce metrics from which decisions can be made. No easy task, that.
The difference is that charts are like watching pornography in pictures whereas numbers is like reading pornography.
Charts are analog computers... if you point to one axis you read the solution to the equation for that point by looking at the other axis... a French Mathematician name Descartes invented the idea while staring at a ceiling it's said... that would apply to trading if you used a line chart and there was an underlying equation... The way data is transmitted and represented is typically in time bars... it's just a convenient way to package things, that says nothing with regard to whether a chart of those convenient units can have any meaning at all... people try to give such charts meaning by adding indicators... anybody that wants to prove or disprove the usefulness of an indicator can overlay a five minute chart with hourly bars and base said indicator on the five minute bars and see how often it predicts the extreme or the close of the hourly bar, or even the direction of the close of said hourly bar. One can do that very quickly with any indicator one wants, no backtester is needed... [if anybody finds an indicator that works AT ALL, please send me a PM and don't omit the name of the indicator, the settings would be nice to have as well] Having said all that, I'll say that I trade from charts, or rather I use charts to provide inputs to my ATS by way of lines drawn on the chart... the ATS does the trading so long as I keep drawing lines... the lines do represent what I'm thinking about the trend and strength of trend, it's the greatest man-machine interface for trading, if I stop drawing the ATS can recognize that the last line drawn is irrelevant and once it gets flat it will stay that way until I come back to the work at hand... All the chart packages that use EZ Language can read a hand drawn line and Sierracharts can do that too, I have an email in to a developer of another chart package that I like and maybe I can add his little gem of a charting package to my list of "things I really like"... I'm a Radio Designer by trade on occasion. The equivalent thing for using the chart as a man-machine interface to an ATS is to find a beautiful looking old radio and keep it's appearance that way but replace everything in it with a modern Digital Signal Processor Synthesized tuning setup while keeping the tube audio section... I have a Heathkit SB-102 set aside for that, it's going to be very fun to put that on the air... I'd base on a Collins radio but I can't bring myself to cannibalize one of those...
I'm mostly a numbers guy. 95% of what I do is based on numbers only; sometimes I'll trade off a chart, but not often. But people shouldn't think you need to get complicated: we are, after all, dealing with up, down, and sideways. Mostly you need to count. Counting is important.
In one of good strategis, i do not even look at the numbers, i trade whatever the last price is, nothing else.