I rarely indicator fish, but it is something in the arsenal. My biggest problem with indicator fishing is I lose focus and just "chuck and chance it". That never seems to work well. For long distance work over a run sometimes bobber indicators are my most comfortable way of fishing. Without the crutch of an indicator I tend to focus on the fishing a bit more.
Learning fly fishing 50 or so years ago I too use tight lining close in and slack line nymphing further out, especially in riffles. (BTW, back in the day both techniques were used with worms and salmon eggs by deadly old timers) Sometimes a yarn indicator a foot from the fly line connection helps monitor the drift. The key to slack line nymphing is to mend, mend, mend so that the end of the fly line is dead drifting. IMHO, poor mending skills have kept slack line out of popularity. Focus these days is more on casting and less on control of the fly line once it is on the water. The way I learned is that once the end of the fly line is dragging the drift is over and you need to recast. None of the let it drag around downstream (OK, maybe in some rare cases) which I see a lot these days.
But the bottom line for me is, I've fished long enough so that I mostly fish the way I like to fish at the moment whether or not it catches the most fish. Of course I was more into numbers in my 20's and 30's but these days I like to fish the way that offers me the most relaxation - which is rarely indicator fishing.
