Dave,

The robot models were built only for considering direct trades of the underlying.
In options, realized and implied volatility makes all the difference.
The models may be directional, but we may be directionally correct and still volatility can kill us if we are badly timed to it.

About your point on "most of the premium evaporating in the first three weeks" -

Premium evaporates in relation to the risk involved.
The options market (read: the pros) in general price things well.

So any options strategy making use of the robots should primarily be an options strategy that:

(a) you believe has merit from an options perspective first and foremost and does not use options just as a means of leveraging a stock trade.

(b) can use the directionality of the robots as a hint (in this respect I would assume it would be, at least partially, a directional trade).

If you're indeed interested in leverage via options, the way is to go with deep-in-the-money options, which behave pretty much like the underlying (but still cost more to enter and exit due to the larger spread).

These and more are described in Jeff Augen's excellent books which you can look up in Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Volatility-Edg.../dp/0132354691

As regards non-directional trades - Condors- the reference work has been written recently by Michael Benklifa, who is also a member here in the forums:
http://www.amazon.com/Profiting-Iron.../dp/0137085516

Best,
Thanassis (site admin)