I still remain convinced that a good nutritional bait will out score any other bait, long term.
Yes if you put any bait in front of a hungry carp it will get taken, but when your fishing blind, and lets be honest we all fish blind to a certain degree, you are relying on a good quality bait to catch you fish.
It also comes down to how you fish as well, if your fishing a lot of waters a good shelf bought bait will pay dividends. However if your concentrating on one particular water for a length of time your better off using a good nutritional profiled bait to keep the fish eating again and again.
You can by some very nutritious, good baits now, but most of them have high attractor levels which can with time be associated with danger.
Which is where making your own comes into its own, you can make any shape, any buoyancy, you can even change something as simple as the flavour label, should your catch rates start to slow up, hence the interest in amino's and other attractors. I am relatively new to making my own and I have a very big thirst to know more, all in a step of maybe giving my baits that extra 1%.