These two things have had an enormously positive impact on my trading in the past year. I tried futures and piddled around with forex trading both short term, but have done so much better in stocks where I position/swing trade. A great bull market in the past year has also helped greatly, but i feel like it's much easier to catch trends with longer time frames. I also am able to make much better decisions knowing I'm not leveraged. With that said, I have a full time job, so I would be ecstatic to make 15-20%/yr as I compound my accounts.
i would argue that you need to control risk and maximize your strategies profit potential. for me that is sizing up and up and up.