Man Page Writing: Life/Times of Man Page Writer

It's almost too easy to pick on the financial services industry. So let me start by praising some positive trends:

• The price of buying and selling stocks has declined dramatically. I don't have precise numbers, but, in my own experience, I've paid a couple of hundred dollars on a six thousand dollar transaction (early 80s dollars). This was before Charles Schwab came along. (Though we no longer have an account with Chuck, I give them big-time props for pioneering the discount brokerage business.) Now what do you pay? Ten bucks a transaction? And it'll probably decline from there.
• I think even the full-service guys are (generally) less apt to push only individual stocks and will at least mention index funds. All the notions about efficient markets and asset allocation have become the conventional wisdom, and the big brokerage houses have adapted. Acknowledging this change, individual practitioners have changed their titles to "financial advisor", or something like that. Of course, they never were and still are not titled correctly. That would be "salesperson".
• There is a trend toward the use of fee-only (rather than commission-based) financial advisors, whose use is appropriate for people with significant tax, trust, and estate planning needs. (IOW, those prized high net worth individuals.)
• Load funds are dying out. I have no idea if this is true. If it's not, it should be.

Still, there are things like variable annuities, which might have an appropriate place in someone's portfolio. I just have a hard time conjuring up who that person might be. Also on the list of financial devices that tend toward the criminal is whole life insurance.

Even here, though, there is progress. I hear more and more about immediate annuities (a legitimate and important instrument) and term life (ditto).

But the continuing, widespread use full-service brokers (under any title) is a puzzle to me. I would not consider this an abuse, because people clearly want the service. But I don't know why people don't read one of John Bogle's many books or follow David Swenson's template and be done with it.

Even with technical, highly numerate people, I observe this reliance on full-service brokers. I understand that people are busy and are just as happy to turn things over to a man or woman who is probably pleasant and might even be knowledgeable. OTOH, such service has significant costs. Also, it's a realm where you can, if you want, maintain a bit of control over your own life, countering the trend where we are increasingly dependent on institutions (government, large corporate employers, utilities, agribusiness, etc.) beyond our control.