Thanks Knepala for sharing knowledge and your experience with leverage trading.
But I think for any new trader or even for experience one also, putting SL is very important. You have mentioned that you never put SL up to 5x leverage. I don't think this a good idea, especially for new traders.
Eg: Say if my capital is $100000 and I am trading at 5x leverage with no SL, and market crash by just 10%. So my loss would be 10000*5=50000. And in Crashes, even cross margin won't help much. This mean I will lose 50% of my capital in 1 day, due to drag down effect. Here SL comes into role. I know crash does not happen daily, but Most investors lose all their profits which they have earned in crashes only.
This is my opinion, you are welcome to give your feedback.