Quote from wrbtrader:
Divergence is NOT a trade entry signal regardless what indicator you may be using. Therefore, what's your trade signal you're using to tell you to open a trade when you see a divergence price action. ?
I ask the above question because you specifically said you've manually backtested RSI for divergence. That implies you must be using a trade signal involving the price action or the indicator itself to tell you when to enter the divergence. Simply, you can not backtest divergence without a trade signal.
Another way to look at it, if you meet someone that say divergence doesn't work or divergence does work without discussing what trade signal they were using when divergence didn't work or did work...he/she probability knows very little about divergence.
Last of all, if you go to ForexFactory.com forum, there was an old thread there were traders discuss about 100 different types of trade signals to use to signal to open a trade after you've identified a price action in divergence via whatever indicator you're using...
Many trade signals discussed involved something that needs to occur with the indicator and other trade signals involve the price action itself after the divergence was identified. May be worth your time to look for that old thread at the forum if your seriously interested in backtesting different trade signals to use with your indicator/price divergence price action.