I'm sure I'll get ripped to shreds for this, but, IMHO, aiming/pocketing balls is the easiest part of this game, and I honestly don't understand all of the attention given to aiming systems. I have watched many players progress over the years, and invariably it seems that pocketing balls is the first thing they become proficient at. Many times I have seen players who were very good at pocketing balls, but had little skill in the other aspects of the game. Skills such as speed control, cueball control, compensation for spin, strategy, shot selection, and mental acuity under pressure (to name just a few), are the ones that seem to take much more time and effort to develop.
Since no system is going to give a player the feel required to apply the correct spin/speed ratio for masse shot, or even a stop shot for that matter, I think it's safe to say that "hitting a million balls" will always be a requirement for achieving a high level of play. Hitting a million balls is the prescription for developing the fine muscle memory that allows good players to judge spin and speed, and it is probably the way most good players are going to get the feel for whether a carom should be struck softly with follow or hard with draw, or how much to compensate for maximum low-right spin on a cross-side bank, or how much elevation and spin they need to masse around 1/2" of an intervening ball, or how much spin they need to tuck their cueball behind that little cluster for a lockup safe. These are things top players do amazingly well, and much of their knowledge about these shots is in muscle memory developed through... hitting a million balls.
So I would actually say that beginning players would benefit less from aiming systems than advanced players. Most of the A and above players I know and have spoken to on the subject of aiming have told stories similar to mine. They quickly became proficient at pocketing balls, then slowly became proficient at the other parts of the game. As they played smarter pool and developed more feel, their strategy, defense, speed, and cueball control improved, but their shotmaking began to fall off a bit. At that point (already a B or A player), they sought out an aiming system and began to use it for tough shots or when under pressure.
I know there are a lot of good aiming systems out there, and I wouldn't ever tell someone to not research or use them. My only concern is that some beginning/novice players will read all the hype about aiming systems and perhaps come to believe that there is some "silver bullet" system out there that will preclude them from having to hit a million balls. It's just not the case. They may become proficient at pocketing balls in a short amount of time, but if they don't also put in the long hours of hitting balls, they will lag behind the player who doesn't use a system but does put in the hours when it comes to the more difficult skills.
The only system I ever show beginning players is the ghost ball system. I think a purely geometric system is a good place to start, because there's no masking or automatic compensation for anything, and they know if they miss the ball by 4 inches, it was in their stroke and not because they didn't pivot properly or line up the correct edge with the correct center, etc. Not to bash CTE; it obviously works for those who use it. It just seems to me (based on what I have read about it) to be an overly complex solution to what I perceive as being the simplest problem in the game... aiming.
That being said, I would love to sit down with someone who knows CTE and have them show me how to use it. The stuff I have read on here just left me saying "huh?". I'm pretty dense I guess. :sorry:
Aaron