I think considering the market direction (or market sentiment - bullish vs . bearish, ...) is only needed in higher timeframes like days or weeks. On lower timeframes like minutes or hours the market direction usually doesnt play that much of a role because the impact of the direction is simply too low on such timeframes.
But all in all you are right, the direction plays a crucial role in higher timeframes, especially if a trade spans over weeks or even months.
Those using the lower time frame are snipers and even them actually go With the trend too. The higher time frame like the daily and weekly are those used to get the trend. The mid time frames like the 4 hours and 1 hours are used to see maybe the market structure has changed. The less than 1 hour time frames actually are used to just find the best possible entry. Professional traders will still work with the direction of the higher time frame and only change when there is a good fundamentals about that pair that was supposed to change its market structure. Those who trade against the trend are just risking or gambling as you point it out.
The smarter traders are the ones who are winning on this market. While many newbies are coming in, they're literally gambling in the market. The same goes with the forex traders thinking that they'd be rich with it.
There's always the bigger part of the ones that are losing than winning. Even the professionals have their own share of having bad days in the market but still in the end, they'd win if they know the formula and how to trade properly.
I wouldn’t call the smarter traders but rather professional or experience traders, they actually stick to their strategies and to their trading plan no matter the market conditions this is what makes them win more.
The one thing that the newbies lack from professional is not even the knowledge sometimes but the patience to actually stick to their plans even if it doesn’t work. They lack patience to backtest, lack patience to stay in an trade and even lack patience to grow gradually rather they switch strategies when one doesn’t work for them, enter trades without proper risk management and easily close trade going against them. Some are even eager to close winning trades easily