I tend to be fairly optimistic about the market improving this year. But then I represent people who don't eat if they don't deal. You keep reading about people poised to jump into the market when the time is right, but those deals are still holding.
Then you have Jeff Brown, who sees a lot of his people in the world applying Murphy's Law and O'Toole's Corollary. Jeff hits yet another home run. As I am sure I have said before, I also think sometimes people who write about these things tend to want to push the negative for many reasons, follow a herd mentality and tell people what they want or expect to hear. It is also easier to make negative predictions than positive ones; usually if you are wrong no one cares but if you are wrong when you are bullish, well, you are a pariah for sending people over the cliff.
I make no pretensions about knowing where the market is going, but I do know that many people in the business have made a ton by selling when the herd is buying, and vice versa. Think about it....