"Math is the language of the universe. Everything and anything can be represented by numbers; graph those numbers and patterns emerge. If you're sophisticated enough to understand the pattern, you can understand anything, even the stock market. The Torah, for instance, is just a long string of numbers. Decode the Torah, and you can find the one true name of God."
http://www.theshrubbery.com/0998/movie1.html
lundy,
After having read your initial post, I couldn't help but think of the movie,
Pi, about a number theorist named Maximillian Cohen who discovered the one universal number set that explained virtually every mystery known to man. The Holy Grail, if you will. This man was tortured by his own mind and delved deeper and deeper into his own insanity. In addition, he was terrorized by the outside world and was endlessly hounded by Wall Street financiers. As the movie progresses, Max's obsession escalates into a wild frenzy that he can no longer tolerate and the film ends with him performing a frontal lobotomy on himself in the bathroom with a power drill.
If you haven't seen it, Pi is a must-rent film.
Anyway, I don't think you're crazy. And please don't drill a hole in your head, either.
I truly believe that system development and actual trading are two totally different skills. Perhaps you are a genius in the former, but not in the latter.
Cheers!