No, the market evolved as it always does. But, so much of the "HFT is evil" belief stemmed from the subprime era and with respect to fair play at the time, you can't ignore the impact of NMS. I went back to grad school in 2010 and had to be careful to whom I told my background, else I'd get roped into some morality debate with a 26 year old Occupy activist who didn't know what a market order was.

Nowadays, I really don't see much edge in trading at all.

I would love to know what those traders you've spoken with think is profitable. I see my old bosses at Rom near the CME almost every Friday and I haven't heard a positive line from them in 5+ years.