I must have blinked. I don't recall Wellington being reopened after it was closed to third parties in 2019:
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/48728/vanguard-wellington-fund-closed-to-third-party-intermediaries

In recent years, fund companies have experimented with various ways of closing funds. One thing I’ve seen more often is funds closing their doors halfway: They close the fund to investors using fund super­markets but leave them open to those who invest directly with the fund company.
This really serves two purposes. First, it slows down the rate of inflows. Second, it leaves more profits for the fund company because it doesn’t have to pay a No Transaction Fee plan provider like Schwab or Fidelity the usual 35 basis points in fees.

https://www.morningstar.com/articles/699524/these-medalists-are-closed-but-left-the-backdoor-open
That was written in mid-2015, and included Wellington as one of the funds that were "halfway" closed at the time.

I’m such a simpleton... with rare exception (bonds for ballast? / which I exited) - I compare all equity funds I’m considering to the S&P 500 benchmark. If that’s what Buffet advises to do with retirement and plans to do for his family...it seems reasonable to me. I think FLPSX is an ok fund. But I did exit from it several years ago when it was no longer a small cap. It’s “not fair” to compare it against SPY but I do... like all my funds. When I do, SPY outperforms most years but not YTD. Joel is having a good year so far.

Assuming arguendo that your claim about Exhibits A-D is correct, they don't refute the statement that "past performance does not guarantee future results." Exceptions do not refute a general statement.
A more convincing argument could be made if one looked at the worst performing funds. Because, unlike good funds, poor funds have a greater tendency to continue performing as they have in the past. See Carhart's landmark paper.
VWELX hasn't been outperforming its benchmark over time: not over 1 year (16.79% vs. 20.70% for its benchmark), not over 3 years (9.80% vs. 11.67%), not over 5 years (11.51% vs. 12.66%) and not over 10 years (9.44% vs. 10.46%). These numbers are as of Feb 28,2021 and come straight from Vanguard using Vanguard's chosen blended benchmark.
https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/profile/performance/vwelx
Let's assume that you're right, that over its lifetime (since July 1, 1929) Wellington did outperform. That would mean that after outperforming for its first 82 years, through Feb 28, 2011, it underperformed its benchmark overall for the next ten years.
Its four score and two year long outperformance didn't serve as a guarantee of future outperformance over time - over the subsequent decade.
FLPSX shows similar underperformance in the past decade, though Fidelity never explicitly names the R2K as its benchmark. Fidelity just displays FLPSX's performance relative to the R2K and bases part of the manager's bonus on how well it does relative to the R2K (see SAI). (Here's a chart showing FLPSX vs. the R2K and the S&P 400; it underperformed both over the past decade through March 30, 2021.)
1 year (33.38% vs 51.00% for R2K), 3 years (9.26% vs. 14.87%), 5 years (12.37% vs. 17.92%), 10 years (10.73% vs 11.86%). These figures through Feb 28, 2021.
https://fundresearch.fidelity.com/mutual-funds/performance-and-risk/316345305?type=o-NavBar
Unlike Vanguard, Fidelity does compare the fund's lifetime performance with that of its benchmark, so we don't have to make any assumptions. Since its inception on Dec. 27, 1989 through Feb 28, 2021, FLPSX outperformed its benchmark, 13.35% to 10.19%.
Which means that a couple of decades (21 years) of outperformance did not guarantee a future of outperformance over the next decade.

@AndyJ, read several discussion that the 10 years treasury yield will reach 2% by year end. Not sure about holding too much lower quality or junk bonds while trading off the negative correlation to stocks. One can shift some of the bonds to dividend oriented and balanced funds, but this change the overall risk profile. While the Fed is maintaining a near zero interest rate, this low yield environment is challenging for income investors.
@bee et al, REITs are slowly coming back from the depth of drawdown. Shopping malls and hotels were heavily impacted by the lockdown during the pandemic as many tenants cannot pay their rent or low usage. Other sectors of REITs are not as bad. Situation is improving and there is still a way to go before reaching the height prior to March 2020.

Hi @bee and @hank
We've not held FRIFX for several years, but it remains an interesting holding within "its" real estate category.
The fund used to be a mix of equity, HY bonds, preferreds and convertibles.

Agree with the consensus. But looking back to a year ago, the 3 funds I cited had very good years - even starting from a rather low interest rate level. (Price’s GNMA has been a laggard for years - plus they had an incredibly short duration on it when I looked at it around year end, around 4-5 years.)
2020 1-year returns (From Yahoo)
PBDIX +8.15%
DODIX +9.45%
PRGMX +4.21%
Average GMMA fund + 5.65%

“The stock market is rotating ... “

What if instead of rotating the markets were really only levitating? Alan Greenspan infamously remarked that you can’t identify a bubble until after it implodes. So, if Ol’ Al couldn’t tell ahead of time, who are we to know?

At a tad more than FD1000’s hypothetical 3% inflation rate, inflation at 3.25% yearly would result in a 10% increase in the cost of living in 3 years (Inflation compounds in a manner similar to compound interest.) Not to say that would be good or bad - just to demonstrate the cumulative effect a seemingly small level of inflation can have over time.
While I’m disappointed at the shallow depth of the T. Rowe Price article I linked, the real news here is that this conservative outfit chose to mention the possibility of significant inflation at all. For a number of years their take was that price inflation would remain subdued (largely correct). So for them to acknowledge the possibility at all is worthy of note.
Always best to think about an issue before it arises - “To the early bird goes the worm ...”

Not to be too incredibly derivative, and this was from a post from the great Chowder, of Seeking Alpha (and the “Chowder Number,” or dividend yield plus growth) fame, and its slightly dated (especially after a run up in utilities over last few weeks) dated 2/28, but its related to discussion:
[Quote] On the dividend front, I have declared tomorrow as Utility Monday. I will be adding to the following utility companies.
AWK .. BEPC .. NEP .. WEC .. RNRG .. XEL.
Most of the focus here is on clean energy.
Utilities seem to be undervalued to me and they can almost be considered growth assets going forward just to achieve new price highs. Although D is a favorite best-in-class at JP Morgan, I already own a large amount of them and would prefer building the other utilities up in size.
A news blurb from Barron's:
Utility company stocks ( XLU, VPU) and funds are a cheap way to plug into the seismic shift away from coal and toward wind and solar power over the next 15 years, providing a potential boon to both the environment and investors, according to the latest Barron's cover feature.
"Utilities are a stealth green energy play, with much lower valuations than most alternative-energy providers and less risk," says Hugh Wynne, co-head of utilities and renewable energy research at SSR.
The conventional view is to buy tech or renewable companies as a way to participate in the energy transition, but the "most efficient and optimal risk-adjusted manner to participate in the energy transition is through well-run electric utilities," says George Bilicic, vice chairman of investment banking at Lazard.
Barron's identifies companies that offer attractive yields and inexpensive valuations, including Alliant Energy (NASDAQ: LNT), American Electric Power (NASDAQ: AEP), CMS Energy (NYSE: CMS), Dominion Energy (NYSE: D), Entergy (NYSE: ETR), Exelon (NASDAQ: EXC), NextEra Energy (NYSE: NEE), Pinnacle West Capital (NYSE: PNW) and Xcel Energy (NASDAQ: XEL).
Morgan Stanley analyst Stephen Byrd favors American Electric Power, which he calls a "coal-heavy company that is moving away from that in a big way" and thinks the stock, which is down 20% in the past year, could rise as its transformation continues.
Reaves Asset Management's John Bartlett says CMS Energy is "cleaning up its emissions, while holding increases in electric bills to around the rate of inflation."J.P. Morgan's Jeremy Tonet likes Dominion as a "best-in-class, pure-play regulated utility with attractive green growth plans," and Entergy, which has one of the best hydrogen logistics networks on the Gulf Coast. [End quote]
BEPC (Brookfield Renewable Resources, not K-1 issuing)....NEP (yieldco like AY)....CWEN/CWEN.A (another yieldco)....NEE (utility sponsor of NEP, and the leader in renewable utilities). Also HASI, a REIT that serves renewable energy projects. These are some other ideas. NEE has a yield around 2%, BEPC and HASI about 2.5-3%, NEP about 3.5%, and CWEN almost 5%. May be getting a little far afield for @Crash :)

But there is good stuff in there - admittedly you have read it before:
“Whereas valuations explain very little of returns over the next one to two years, they have explained 60-90% of subsequent returns over a 10-year time horizon,” the firm noted. “We have yet to find any factor with such strong predictive power for the market over the short term.”
Looking ahead Subramanian envisions more muted returns, or about 2% per year for the S&P 500 over the next decade. Including dividends, returns stand at 4%. The forecast is based on a historical regression looking at today’s price relative to normalized earnings ratio.“

Exciting High Dividend REITs
https://www.google.com/amp/s/seekingalpha.com/amp/article/4416145-5-exciting-high-dividend-reits
Summary
*Real estate investment trusts ('REITs') are popular with income seeking investors in the current low interest rate environment.
In this article, we highlight five of our favorite REITs in the data center, self-storage, and commercial property industries that represent prime income generation opportunities.
To gauge the forward-looking strength of a company, we use our proprietary Dividend Cushion ratio, which we cover in this article.
Concluding Thoughts
CyrusOne, CubeSmart, Digital Realty, Public Storage, and Realty Income represent five of our favorite dividend growth REITs out there as these firms represent stellar opportunities for income seeking investors. The data center and self-storage industries are great places to locate high-quality income generation ideas with solid growth outlooks and strong payouts. For Realty Income, we expect its business to come surging back as public health authorities in the US and the UK work towards bringing an end to the COVID-19 pandemic, aided by ongoing vaccine distribution efforts. Looking ahead, all five of these REITs should continue to make good on their payout obligations over the coming years with room for dividend growth upside, in our view.*
In the next few years real estates investments may see > 10 20% gain possible

This is why I have owned one stock in part BA-Boeing for 45 years and will never sell it. I am also 87 in April. There were times when I owned a great deal more.

Kind of what happens as an end result when you ship all your decent paying jobs overseas over the period of 20-30 years...ya'll left with a BS economy...selling weed for tax revenue, working at fast food joints, driving UBERs...and the good paying jobs are either in overpriced health care segment or developing apps that society would arguably be better off without and wouldn't miss them if they didn't exist, keeping rates low so mortgage finance officers can make bank and realtors and local tax districts can suckle of the false teet of overprice real estate....so you get what I would call instead of EXPLOIT...BSECONO....
Side Note: Love how many of the folks who run for local office on school boards etc, state they own their own business...I always ask them, very nice, congrats...how many associates do you employ, what kind of budget did you manage, what were your revenues over the past threee years...oh...so really you were a free lance graphic artist working on average 25 hours a week...
Get used to it...if the real economy was real sound, you wouldn't have folks particpating in these BS, screw the worker grunt, no bennies, while exec's make bank types of companies. They would get laughed out of existence.
But...we like it, don't we, we all buy from Bezos, squeezing local merchants and like our UBERs don't we?
Baseball Fan

This was common during Dot Com when we were all working to build the 'modern' internet, such that it is. Back then, we believed in what we were inventing/creating/running and us GenX'ers also had the last vestigages of that 'old time' work ethic we picked up from our parents, families, and teachers in the 70s and 80s growing up.
We worked hard, we had (some) fun, we played hard, sometime slept in the office when on a final deadline, rarely complained and were fairly compensated one way or the other. We didn't have expectations of grandeur of making VP or Director or Partner in 2 years after hire or anything like that. Now, it seems everyone feels entitled to everything, and if they encounter obstacles (like time-in-grade or industry, certification or competency exams, etc) you're seen as putting up exclusionary roadblocks and how-dare-you.
Admittedly, the expectation for some things have changed, and I think for the better, such as improving work-life balance, remote work, etc. And I *totally* agree there are people problems - especially several horrible gender/social issues in the tech field, which is my own discipline and thus am most familiar with - which has contrbuted to the huge push across sectors for equality, equity, & expectations. Unfortunately, you can take addressing them to insane or extreme lengths in the name of 'inclusion' and that can end up causing resentment by all involved. This situation is made worse if you feel discouraged from asking constructively critical questions about things because that'll put you on record & suggest that you're not committed to [cause or solution du jour] by the bean counters. internal affairs, HR, or consultants.
I daresay in some ways as a society we've lost all sense of reason in dealing with such issues, many of which indeed are longstanding problems that need improvement and/or resolution ASAP.

I do agree that shorter and hotter cycles are likely ahead. But taking a longer term view (7-10 years) I still think small and mid caps, especially growth orientated, will outperform large caps. I like BIGRX and DHLAX for LCV and have been nibbling at them both in the last 6 months.

I often wonder whether factor-based funds are really better than allocation funds. I tried them several years ago but they were eliminated in favor of active managed allocation funds.

This was a fine eclectic fund that I held from launch until 2 years ago when they changed managers and things kind of went blah, and I lost faith. ;/

I worked for a small "boutique" investment bank in NYC about 15 years ago, and the analysts there would often work wicked hours. Sometimes, when working on a deal, they would sleep at their desk (or under it) for a few hours overnight. Weekends were never their own. They were paid well, but they were mistreated badly. Some saw it as "paying your dues" for a nice career in Private Equity later on.

Here is a whitepaper from Qontigo (Axioma, DAX, STOXX) that says much the same thing.
https://qontigo.com/low-volatility-strategies-why-the-wheels-came-off-temporarily-in-2020-blog/
CONCLUSION
The Low Risk 200 index has historically outpaced its Global 1800 benchmark and has produced a higher Sharpe ratio in about two thirds of the years since 2006. In months and years when the market fell, low risk outperformed. The strategy’s worst relative performance came when the market rose sharply. In 2020, however, when the market was down, the Low Risk 200 fell even more, and then continued to underperform (as expected) in the subsequent market recovery. Overall, that made for a very difficult year for Low Volatility investors...

Lots of mid cycle thoughts...

But don't worry, that's likely not happening any time soon. However, it does mean we could move from an early cycle playbook to more of a mid cycle strategy sooner than normal. Sectors like energy, industrials and health care may do better from here, which is earlier than what we experienced in the prior two expansions. It also means small caps start to underperform large caps sooner than normal, which is a big reason we downgraded small caps last week.
The bottom line: this cycle and bull market likely have years to run. However, it’s running at a faster speed, and that means staying nimble and a bit more tactical with one's equity portfolio. Consider moving more mid-cycle sooner, rather than later.

Audio and weekly Brief:
https://morganstanley.com/ideas/thoughts-on-the-market-wilson

I know a number of funds out there have long been investing in late stage, private, pre-ipo companies for awhile now - T. Rowe's Ellenbogen comes to mind. Do any of you have concerns with this?
One one hand, it makes sense given how late companies have been waiting to IPO (though that seems to have changed in the last two years, especially with this SPAC party). Mutual funds used to particpiate much earlier in a companies stage of development since they IPOd early, thus we as public investors could be a part of a majority of the growth story (think Apple, Microsoft, etc). But again, that's not the case with many firms like Uber, etc.
On the other hand, Woodford across the pond obvoiusly went too far with his fund and blew it up.