Number 1: I studied Technical Analysis for years and have found price action, RSI, stage analysis, and gap fills are a very successful strategy for me to find long term entries/exits. Will I time the bottom? Probably not, but TA tells me when not to buy more than when to buy.
Number 2: The perfect portfolio does not exist. It all comes down to ones risk tolerance and time trajectory. Most people would benefit from putting all their money in
$VOO and
$QQQM and never trying to build an individual portfolio.
Number 3: Those that use this excuse just need proper education on the stock market and how it works. I seek to be very patient with these people to explain to them that investing can be risky but its even more risky if they never do invest.
Hope this helps :)