Re-reading my post it's a little incoherent as it was written late last night.

The main point is this:

1.  In traditional markets there are countermeasures for darkpools (FOK), we don't have that with bitcoin.  Also, most darkpool transactions are reported at some point in time in traditional markets (although, this depends on the exchange/instrument... spot Forex has major issues with this).   We don't even have this with bitcoin.

2. Bots are just an extension of regular traders, they can't do anything more than a normal trader can unless the environment is designed for them specifically.  A terrible trader will make a terrible bot.  A good trader has a chance at making a good bot (but not necessarily).  Winning trading algorithms are a subset of winning traders.  I wish I had a link, but I was reading that there's an office building in Chicago right next to the CME, that sold for north of $1B due to its close proximity to a major server in the exchange network.  HFTs require very little latency, so whoever has the lowest ping to that server, controls the HFT market.  But the moral of the story is, don't fear bitcoin bots (yet), they are never going to be as efficient as their authors, and the environment is not yet to the point where being a bot has any inherent advantage that a normal trader can't do, other than it doesn't sleep and can stay 100% focused.

3.  Fear the exchanges and darkpools.  Jered from Tradehill even chimed in on this topic and said we have every right to question what the exchange owners are doing.  DO NOT ASSUME they have your best interest in mind.  DO NOT ASSUME they know what they're doing.  To be frank, MtGox's choices with regards to how they handled the hackcrash and subsequent rewards to traders (0 commissions) demonstrates a major short-sitedness.  Zero commission for everyone creates 0 spread, but to selectively give it to some people and not others will create an unfair advantage.  Finally, DO NOT ASSUME that exchange owners don't participate in their own markets.  I believe they do, and I strongly believe they shouldn't, or at the very least need to disclose that they do.  Their participation can range from legit and honest, to downright fraud.  An example of fraud is frontrunning , which where they can place their own orders before a large order is processed and capitalize on the price movement.  When you place a trade in a market you need traders to come in AFTER you, in order to profit.  Frontrunning artificially creates that.  The owners of MtGox are the only people who see both darkpools and non darkpools, so the temptation is there.