(Merging responses again to keep things organized.)
100% correct BUT how does that help you make money in the financial markets--- truth is, it doesnt.
You've ignored this twice already, but I'll risk a third time because I'm highly interested: how do
you make money? More importantly to this thread, how have
you scientifically disproved Wyckoff's validity in modern markets? You're withholding important information that would justify your claims and give you a ton of credibility here. You mentioned back-testing before; how was this performed? Did the system duplicate a Wyckoff practitioner in forward-testing but fall apart in back-testing or changing instruments?
A run on stops hardly reflects willing buyer willing seller.
Hold on. Why did you place your stop order if not to get it executed if price reaches that level?
You aren't "robbed" when a stop-loss order gets run, you get executed at the price you yourself defined
willingly. If you keep seeing whales playing Hungry Hungry Hippos, adapt and hide further away behind stronger price structure so that other people stop out before you; don't complain that you were robbed when you can fight back.

(Reminds me of that Simpsons episode when Bart kept touching the electrified muffin while the hamster learned a work-around after one or two attempts.) Heck if the runs are too deep to avoid, maybe they could be a great opportunity to recognize as a pattern to get back in knowing you're on a whale's side; then that stop was just a cost of discovery. Whales often slap markets around to shake them out of ranges, which is useful.
you argue that all market participants are willing. Exactly where does AMT state that market interactions are governed by the fact that all participants are willing? Can't you comprehend that a willing participant may be unwilling to accept a price level? Are you changing AMT?
Didn't that stem from your saying that a stop run wasn't described by AMT, effectively that a stop-loss isn't either? I'd turn that logic around: your risk management has you place your stop-loss at the worst price you are
willing to tolerate. Worse than that would be too much, but that level
isn't. If it gets hit, you were by definition a willing participant in that transaction.
Now if liquidity evaporates in a catastrophic event and you get filled significantly worse than your stop-loss price, then sure why not, you were robbed/raped/etc. Still a risk you were fully aware of before entering your position, though, so I'm personally not too comfortable with the sentiment.
I can't comment on spoofing and quote stuffing though, because I don't trust market depth data to begin with, but those aren't stop runs anyway. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)
By the way, "manipulator" and "manipulation" were mainstays in Wyckoff's vocabulary, so if we set aside pure AMT and get back to the thread's topic, for sure Wyckoff takes whales into account; they're an integral part of that model.
You were recently presented with a chart and I think 3 specific questions of why what you preach was not applicable in that context. Everything very specific. Your response was if you had done the work, you would know the answer. Really? What is so difficult about answering specific questions about what you write of every day, and have done for years?
Because trolls (not saying
you are one! just covering my butt) have very little memory/patience and tend to bunch everyone they see into black/white "sides" with no middle ground, I'll point out here that though I personally do not know kp's history around here (i.e. why DP seems impatient with him/her), I certainly would've liked to see those questions answered in more detail and not dismissed.
Just so nobody thinks I'm somehow "defending my guru" in some kind of mystical faith or something.

I argue when something doesn't make sense to me, regardless of author or "sides".
People buy insurance because they are betting misfortune will befall them? Did your mother drop you on your head when you were a baby?
Why do these arguments always have to degenerate into useless personal attacks like that? It's counterproductive. You seem knowledgeable and far from out of thoughtful arguments, but you're losing your own credibility by turning this into a school playground fight, but I digress...
People buy insurance because of a combination of two things: 1) they recognize that something can occur and 2) they aren't capitalized well enough to withstand it, should it occur. If they didn't think there was any risk of it happening, they wouldn't buy insurance against it.
Not a direct analogy with stop-losses in trading, but, hmm I guess it can... You pay insurance ahead of time, whereas you mentally write off your stop cost before you enter a trade (or should, anyway, as part of how to keep emotion out of it).