[danteembermage]

In my experience mixed strategies are very important to pushing the boundaries of game theory but are rarely important in applying it (I come from business/economics so that biases the kinds of models that are useful). For example, when we think about how to optimally design an executive compensation contract the resulting equilibrium usually has no randomness at all or at least the actors are not playing a mixed strategy. The executive knows what "effort" level she will exert and the compensation committee knows what it will pay her (not in absolute dollar terms but in terms of an explicit contract). The only mixing example I can think of is that Soccer goalies appear to be mixing with which direction they dive and kickers kick http://www2.owen.vanderbilt.edu/mike.shor/courses/game-theor... although I think duopoly product competition is often viewed that way (not competing on price or production size but whether to launch a new product)