hitting the target or the triple 20

[Mitch44]

Ah ha! There's the rub so to speak, you never said vertical bets only. That's a horse of a different color.

I totally disagree with your premise that win betting can't be profitable because of the chaos from the 1/8 pole to the wire. Fact of the matter is that if there is chaos from the 1/8 pole to the wire it's in your handicapping.

A bet you conveniently left out here is the DD. I left it out because the odds are the same as an exacta under your play of keying two winners with your top 6 picks. Facts are it's easier to pick winners than an exacta because any horse can pop up into the place slot and ditto for the show & 4th slot. Even with the exacta you better be looking at payoffs as many of those bets won't break you even for the amount bet or outlay.

As far as betting the Tri. & SF your betting into unknown payoffs and forcing yourself to over extend your outlay and capital. Now there are better betting procedures and ways to reduce that effect and as you say to which I totally agree betting is a very important aspect of this game. Even the horizontal bets can be improved upon to reduce the number of combinations.
Good luck with your approach of that in the long run. Betting combinations that the public hammers without consideration to payoffs is a fools game. Personally I'm not betting an exacta that the public hammers to a $7.00 payoff and I put in $20 for my top two with my top 6 as you profess. Just not good sound advice. Best of luck through with that.
Mitch44