LOL! Well, I've found that sometimes when we watch these things for clues and they don't tell us anything, we try to pry clues out of them.
The put call is an example. Often times it's rendered useless by either options expiration or those goofy block trades of 100,000 contracts or more. When that happens, it's probably better to just grab something else out of the old T/A tool box until that indicator or sentiment indicator once again can assist in divining market direction.
In possible the VIX and VXN are staying range bound because we're still correcting off that massive slide from Dec. 2001 to October 2002. I mean really, that was a 50% haircut for the NDX in less than 8-months (Dec-July).