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The short of it is that in NT I do have a 30 minute chart up with RTH volume profiles, using the GomMP indicator, based on tick data, so I don't have to fiddle with recording. I have tried the footprint/ladder and find it a waste of time for me personally. It is essentially redundant information, and focusing on this causes me to lose focus on other things which are actually important to me. However, all anyone can do is try it and see how you like it; who knows, maybe it will be your favorite tool.
What you will find if you plot volume at price over a region is that the prices with the lowest volume will often align with areas of support and resistance on the price chart. The logic should be clear why, as the edges of a range are just that--edges, which are quickly rejected, thus trading very little volume at these edges. I won't go into a big spiel about auction market theory and how profiles can be interpreted, as you probably know much of this. I try to simply see volume profile for what it is: a histogram that shows how much volume traded in the past at each price.
It is simply another way to view or map the market, much like using price for support and resistance, EW, Gann, or anything else. One of the reasons I do not rely heavily on volume profiles beyond an intraday basis is that it heavily weights the RTH hours for an instrument, due to heavy volume during regular hours. However, when a market like CL is not trading, it is being influenced heavily by other world markets--lack of overnight volume does not make the market any harder to move, in fact it's much easier! So, I do not plot long-term profiles very often due to the fact that I feel overnight price levels are almost as important as RTH price levels. I posted about this in the volume profile thread I think, but I am getting too tangential here.
The other day I was reading some writings by Wyckoff from 1932. I could not help but smile as he plotted his point and figure chart as a way of tape reading, and he talked about "4500 shares traded over" some price range. He essentially was plotting volume at price. And what you do Gary is somewhat of the Wyckoff school, and volume profile is kind of another side of the same die. What you are using your 1 minute chart is to observe heavy volume activity, both in a small period of time (hence the 1 minute), and in a particular range of prices. No matter how we frame markets, it's all the same market, and it's not that different at all from 80-90 years ago when Wyckoff was trading. Kind of amazing actually.
If I understand what you mean by "float" correctly, it definitely did float. From the period with the arrow, it has floated quite well on the lowest non-holiday volume in years. Bottom histogram is daily range.