Better than that then use a more anonymous coin such as monero or dash which again you can shapeshift to easily.
It's not really paranoia. OP is asking for a way of hiding his transactions so no one can track them back to him.
about ShapeShift:
A post where someone is easily making progress on tracking a hacker from his transactions made with ShapeShift.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/544y1p/some_blockchain_analysis_of_the_current_dos/
https://np.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/59adpy/ethereum_network_attackers_ip_address_is_traceable/d96z9sa/
about the risk of using mixers, you don't need to send 50BTC at once and hope that you don't get scammed. You can easily split your transactions in small amounts and do one at a time. If OP really wants privacy, he will probably use a method that really WORKS, regardless of its difficulty.
I cant argue that your wrong because your not. Mixing is the best option with bitcoin. I hadnt read that thread before, I wasnt even aware that shapeshift would release details on any transactions but apparently they do. Everydays a learning day =p
Youd still be better with alts if privacy is your main concern though. Id rather have my money in bitcoin for stability reasons but if there's a high risk of being traced id go with something else.