It's true that I've used the tick charts exclusively for years for my 930 (a term coined by my late friend and teacher Mike Bruns) strategy. While I've certainly harvested more ticks in the recent volatility, I realized that not enough of the moves was optimized.
It was NQ, whose insights and ideas I respect who encouraged me to take a look at the 5M and study Al Brooks and David Halsey. I've known Al for years and traded with him for a couple of them in the early millennium. He sent me a copy of his first book when it came out but I found it to be tough reading and was doing fine with the 930s anyway. Well, I recently started studying Al's work in earnest and was frankly astonished at the level and depth of his scholarship with regard to price behavior and development. As long as I've been trading, I have been learning much. If the price of $350 doesn't scare you and the lessons learned should pay you back in many multiples, the video course is quite a bit easier to learn from than the books and contains many hours of instruction. I do not shill for Al and have not communicated with him for 4 or 5 years, the recommendation is based on my respect for his work and nothing else.
I have also at the recommendation of NQ built minute charts with the 5M being central and am developing strategies based on Al's work as well as the HWB concepts of Halsey. As NQ stated, he does not trade Halsey's trade plan. Despite any influences from any sources, each of us will have our own way of trading...there may similarities and some may be close similarities but as we are all different, we will all trade somewhat differently. As to why the 5M, many of the algo bots are designed around it but you will still want to look at larger time frames IMO to see the bigger picture, the forest containing the 5M trees if you will.