What makes me uneasy about HFT is the speed in which things happen.

For example, I believe the BATS IPO that happened last month began trading around $15, and was below $1 in about 900ms before trading was halted. (Nanex.net has news postings about these kinds of things, and I wouldn't mind hearing other people's opinion about the site)

I guess my question is, is it possible for traders to make money in the short term (hours/minutes) or is that forever in the land of robots now?