What I was looking for
Whether a liquidity-void entry signal added anything beyond the exits and fees around it.
What I found
A strategy's P&L mixes the entry signal with the exits, the fees and the market's drift. Judged against zero, a winner looks like a working signal even when the exits or a rising market did the work.
In the Liquidity Engine, entering only on a liquidity-void revisit lost −4,580 per trip against −4,693 for ungated cyclers with identical exits. Indistinguishable. The registered test failed, and the comparison said why.
The move
Every filter or entry signal I test gets a control: the same exits, fees and fills, with the signal removed.