NOPE not any more. Drove me crazy bouncing around with the 5min charts and at the time a poor trading platform with freezing up etc. Finally said screw it. Now after paying off every debt I had and building up a nice retirement/trading account I can trade the ETFs in the SPX, NDX and dozens of other ETFs including Inverse ones and double bull and double bear ones. PLus there are now numerous commodity based ETFs as well. They serve the purpose the same without all the futures baggage to deal with. And the leverage with them is not extreme and can't get you into too much trouble but still have excellent returns far better than I used to make with the Emini contracts.
I've also found a 15min chart keeps you light years ahead of things compared to the 5 min charts and gives you much better, clearer and stronger patterns to trade with and much better perspective on direction. I mentioned this to a couple of guys that traded with 5 min charts and they switched to 15min and find them far better for those reasons as well. Just don't need or even want to be looking at a 5min chart unless you are just scalping a point now and again. Much bigger and cleaner swings with the 15min charts. But to each his own.......... We all see and trade differently. That's what makes a market it seems.