The frame of reference is key. And time frame also. I've been working for the past few years w/ an individual I trust for taxable and Roth $$ outside of my 401k.

One can argue until the end of time about asset allocation, fees and the wisdom of passive vs active investing but in this specific case, over this specific timeframe and in this volatile bull market that $$ has outperformed any broad stock index by a comfortable margin, at the cost of 1.5% in active fees (which go beyond just allocating the assets) i.e., so far it's been well worth it.

Plus I loosely mirror those allocations in my PRAP, which means those stocks (which as of a few weeks ago, cost $0 to trade) are not exposed to any fees at all - a plus vs any ETF or mutual fund now... legit zero cost and you could argue that effectively lowers the percentage cost of the external service. I wonder if Schwab and others will now bump up other fees in funds, etc, to make up for the free trading?

Time will tell how a bear market may change my opinion but I think we're prepared/positioned for it and will react better to it than I might on my own. I'll know it's worked well or poorly in a few decades I suppose - or earlier in theory since if you approach your goal "number" early and you're not a big gambler you can start locking in some of those gains and shift more conservative.

In my case I had spent a few years attempting to read every new article that the standard websites and magazines spew out, applying my "stayed at a Holiday Inn Express" level of knowledge to retirement investing building a cookie cutter "3 or 4-fund" passive low-fee portfolio that you "only need to rebalance twice a year". Ultimately I left a lot of potential market gains on the table and probably had a ratio good for a mid-50yo but was 20ish years shy of that. Learning in real time sucks sometimes.

YMMV but as a pure passive play I think the target date funds are reasonably and adequately effective and are the only true "hands-off" option. Beyond that, if you're comfortable riding some significant ups and downs and put in significant time, there are plenty of ways to build a stock or ETF portfolio - just a lot of pitfalls (and sweat equity) to it. There are some plusses to owning a bunch of individual stocks and not just buying the entire breadth of the index. Or just leave it to a professional, but one you trust - easier said than done sometimes.