Missed Opportunities of 2006

Although 2006 was fantastic w.r.t my returns, my (Finance Obsession/ROI) ratio was not adequate. I suppose nothing is.
Anyway, as I analyzed my 2006 performance I realized that it was an year to pick low hanging fruit, i.e. a lot of good companies were bargains within plain sight. However, I seem to prefer making money the hard way. As I reviewed the spreadsheets, filters, and analysis that I meticulously maintained on a weekly basis, I rued several missed opportunities, such as:

1. Sysco (SYY) around $28 in August 2006. I had it on my radar, Trading around $36.65 today, this could have been a 22% return.
2. Walgreens (WAG) around $40 as recently as late November 2006. Somehow, I couldn't pull the trigger even though I realized that the whole Walmart entry into the retail drug industry was overblown. This was an example of a low risk 15% return in two months.
3. Tyco (TYC) around $26 was an incredible bargain at 13 times free cash flow back in June 2006. However, I decided to wait for a more opportune moment, which transpired to be a missed one. Anyway, this was another example of a low risk 15% return.
4. Microsoft (MSFT) around $22 back in June 2006. This was sick, I don't know how I managed to ignore a company with incredible cash flows and a host of new products such as the Windows Vista, XBox, and Zune. It is a cash cow and this is another no-brainer for a 31% return.

When I quantified these returns in absolute dollar terms, I realized that:

If I had bought 1000 shares of each of the above companies around their 52 week lows, which I had monitored very closely and bought them without chickening out, I could have made a return of 24% without including dividends. An absolute dollar amount of $27, 650. My frenetic trading in derivatives produced approximately $25,000, including some significant losses and heartburn. Although a return of close to 100%, I think the former approach would have helped me focus on other things in life while making money.

So, in my humble opinion patient investing that focuses on value will trump the interest to play dice.