HODLING. The laziest of them all. All you need to do is to buy a definite amount and wait for it to get higher. The only enemy is the long term patience and greedyness. Its tiring but i continue fighting.
HODLING is an investment, it's not something anyone can say is for lazy people, and I don't see how you can consider HODLING as a hard way to earn bitcoin. When the person take $11500 and buy 1 BTC and hold 1 BTC for 5 years for example, by the end of those 5 years that person will still have 1 BTC, they will only have many USD or less USD. HODLING is not for raising BTC, is for earning more USD. Trading can also serve to increase BTC or to increase USD.
I quite agree with your perspective on this. In addition however, it's not just enough to put a peg on a timeline when to dispose/sell off, one has to read the rhythm of the market to do this. For instance, there were investors who sold off at close to Bitcoin ATH of 2017 when they saw that the astronomical rise in price of Bitcoin at that time was only sustained by hype and FOMO and not technical even though they initially planned to sell off in 2020 or after that. Just know the right time to sell off while hodling to increase your dollar value.