You make some very good points, but the fact is that there never has been and never will be a totally unfettered market. There will always be interests with the power and desire to distort markets, either by manipulating the information in the market (the Saudi's saying they are increasing production, IOC's production "forecasts"), by force of arms or implied force of arms (nationalization of resources such as Libya or Venezuela), or by subsidizing consumption.

In the real world these forces eventually have to balance out and we get a market price that reflects the consensus reality, but it is to a large degree a manufactured reality by the time it hits the futures market.

Austrian school economists tick me off. Talk about a discipline divorced from reality, they are actively hostile around the Mises site to any possibility of a reality check of their pet ideas.