Well moving in five legs is pretty simplified... I deal mostly with corrections, double corrections or seven swings and retraces.
I don't propose you use ma's, but just as crazy is for example a 100 day lookback, both have nothing to do with today's price action. A rising ma200 may indicate a rising trend but that was 100 days ago and a rolling 100 day lookback, if you plot it, will give the same results as a placebo.
Of course lag is the major drawback of MA's. There are low/zero lag MA's such as the Hull MA (twicing, thricing) and Ehlers' ZEMA and AZEMA, but I'm not making a claim here that they will turn you into a profitable trader.