@mainholm @AverageJoe I looked at your list of gold drivers,...

@mainholm @AverageJoe
I looked at your list of gold drivers, many thanks.
I don't think I saw currency amongst them (correct me if I'm wrong), and I think that there is typically, a negative correlation between USDX and price of gold (typically, not always). But this is just the lead up.
I attended a five day seminar in NY with Steve Nison many years ago, and as an introductory statement he said something along the lines of "there are so many factors at play in determining a nation's currency, how can any person possibly grasp them? (the same would apply to a computer model - A: You can't.
So, you have to go by the charts" (without any reference to candlesticks, which he introduced to the West, and was the subject of the week).
Now if that incomprehensible, and is but one of the vast list of factors at play in POG, then it becomes totally impossible, as you said:
"Good luck to anybody trying to master that myriad of factors that drive the POG more or less at any point of the day/week/month/year.""
So by implication, Nison's statement about currency must apply to commodities (and whatever people think gold really is, it's unquestionably traded as a commodity, and a very complex one, primarily on CME, with the NY players the biggest of the big dogs. I've done it myself, traded commodities and currencies on CME while living and working in NY (Wall St.) for many years, but was clueless about the game playing at the time......clueless.

So, I'd maintain we have only the chart to guide us, and to take it a step further, the main driver is indeed your #6, the manipulations actions of the Market Makers (Big Banks), whose movements do lend themselves to interpretation and comprehension, but typically not with conventional TA tools, used by all retailers and no Pros, i.e. not the indicators and MA's etc they teach you in Sunday School...but concepts like institutional order flow, price mechanics, market structure, repeating patterns (and I don't mean textbook Chart Patterns like triangles etc.), and yes, above all, humble Support / Resistance.
The footprints they leave cannot be erased, and they do lend themselves to interpretation, both as to price movement (past and future), and even the psychology at play behind those footprints.
Joe and I both called this recent chart breakdown to Brexit lows repeatedly in recent weeks, and it's on the record in the often wild and somewhat crazy Gold Forum, and elsewhere. Both of us acted on our calls (capital preservation / risk mitigation).
But this Forum is a more savvy group, over here.

"we need something to use as a tool don't we? "

Absolutely, since most are running blindly (as I just mentioned I was at the turn of the century, and maybe still am, but getting more confident), and I feel this is the best we have to go with.
Since I joined HC, only a year ago, I have to acknowledge @AverageJoe as the most novel and generous teacher and exponent of this method of unconventional Chart Analysis of the actions of the MM's, based on his experience in Forex markets, and personal study.
He's put a lot of work into it, abandoning many useless, misleading and after the fact technical indicators etc.

Unfortunately, it's not the way people were brought up, change is hard, and is met with a lot of ideologically blinkered...Resistance, shall we say.... and not a lot of Support.