[yummyfajitas]

Huh. So basically, before HFT, the clever institutional trader could use HFT techniques to buy a bunch of shares from less sophisticated retail investors at $20.00 in spite of high demand.

On net, the institutional trader is gaining $0.01 at the expense of retail investors.

Now, in a world with professional HFTs, the institutional investor can't do this as easily and must pay the retail investors $20.01. How horrible!

It's hard to see why you are calling the HFT an "unwanted middleman". I mean sure - the institutional investor would love to keep taking money from the retail investors. But the retail investors want to keep their pennies - they certainly want the HFT to be present.

As I said, the only way to become a middleman is to offer a better price than your competitors.