There is no simple answer to your problem because a computer game is not real life.
In RL a player with great balance and a low centre of gravity can drop a shoulder to go past another player and a player with great pace can go past another player using pace alone but PES and every other football game that has ever been or probably ever will be simply does not work like that because it's impossible to recreate those things without ruining the game.
The reason? We are using controllers to play a game which cannot recreate RL physics to 100% accuracy and even if it could pushing your fingers and thumbs in the right direction at the right time is a lot less effort than actually changing direction when dribbling with a ball at your feet.
You called it exactly right in your post, it's a lottery most of the time and the lottery is decided by the game's code. The only way to beat players regularly is to exploit gaps in that code and guess what? People hate it when you do that because the games become boring a repetitive.
For now, due to technical limitations, the only solution is to make beating a player fairly random in order to try to simulate RL and to stop players exploiting the code to dribble around whole teams before scoring. Sure there are things you can do to increase your chances but I'm sorry to tell you that most of those things involve performing Mortal Kombat type button combinations in order to do a simple trick.
You CAN dribble past a player or two using changes of direction and pace but you soon realize that it is fairly random and there is no sure fire method to ensure you are able to do it any time you like.
This, in my opinon, is how football games work these days. They take small steps forward in realism and freedom but the price of that is "cheating" AI and an unreliable control system.
This is a very good post, too bad I can’t vote you, I already did once and is saying I must spread around some first.
For the player I created in bal (you can see the image I upload in the rage thread) I did put the same values in the upper body and the lower body, I did put a really small value in waist size, to have mobility and change direction as best as I could. For 1.92 player the 63 kg weight looks a bit supernatural but hey in superstar level you need any advantage you can get. I did put max points in the strength not only to get the form 8 and as max tenacity as I could but also to get the biggest possible body balance, sometimes I had to wrestle with the defenders to get the position for a goal, even if you do everything ‘perfect’ and a defender can push you out of balance much the shoot can go everywhere, trust me.
A second striker with the dummy runner skill card is what I needed badly to draw some defenders out of position and create multiple gaps for me to enter, I was completely alone in front. I didn’t had fast dribble and I couldn’t put myself in position to make the run for a throw ball. I was staying a bit behind and I was passing the ball left or right by pressing the buttons before the bal gets to me. I couldn’t risk much bal possession at the middle, this is a job for a midfielder with the hidden skills tactical dribbling, playmaking shooting from distance, center and not for a fox in the box cf anyway. For dribbling pess 2013 has in the training mode a dribble sector were you can learn step by step how to dribble is good to try it. What is most effective in a game you will learning it by playing but you must have in mind a roulette or a flick over the head is only possible when the player doesn’t had the red bar above his head meaning he is tired. If you are tired and everything ‘perfect’ to do 90% the dribble will fail. The rest of the game I was just using the speed button with the bal left but mostly right diagonal (I was a right foot player) and I was shooting the ball before they get to me, with 2 or 3 defenders around sometimes, superstar scripting….
Bottom line with what you are most comfortable relies to you and the hours you spend on training. A thread of real football may needed is always good to have a touch with reality sometimes.
Ps I forgot the king boots were also crappy in pess 2011 they are under the name Predetor_X TRX (a bit better) but i always choose ctr360 Maestri that they have more points in accuracy and in the swerve. I could bent the ball around the defenders in some shoots far out of the box much better with them and i could be much more effective. Democracy is borned in Greece and i found the king title insulting anyway.