A minor point, but I believe the fund originally started with $15 stocks. That's what I recall, and also what Kiplinger reports.
https://www.kiplinger.com/article/investing/T041-C009-S002-fidelity-low-priced-stock-a-good-eye-for-bargains.html
I also recall its move from small cap to mid cap as you describe. What I'm not sure of is whether it was always a closet global fund (> 153; foreign) or whether that was a change in the last decade or so.
While FLPSX has gotten additional managers, and while this fund has seen outflows, Tillinghast still has his hands full.
For example, he's the sole manager on two "internal" funds: the $23M Flex Intrinsic Opportunities Fund (FFNPX) and the $14B Series Intrinsic Opportunities Fund (FDMLX). The latter is nearly half the size of the "slimmed down" FLPSX. That doesn't begin to get into all the funds sold abroad that he's involved with.

I'm relieved to see that benefits will be increased for those $400K+ earners who will be paying more in FICA. Not a lot, but something.
FDR: " We put those pay roll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits."
https://www.ssa.gov/history/Gulick.html
Tax anyone, even the wealthier amongst us, more without providing an increased pension (SS check), and you break this bond. You've decoupled paying in from getting something out. All that's left is a welfare system. It doesn't have to be much, but all wage earners have to receive more if more of their wages are taxed.
The proposed legislation adds a third bend point (fourth rate) in the PIA (primary insurance amount) calculation. The current rates are 90%, 32%, and 15%. The proposed new rate for taxes paid on income above $400K is just 2%.
PIA calculation: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/piaformula.html
HR 1902 Social Security 2100 Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1902

This is the articles proposal. But, it's an increased tax on the wealthier amongst us (earning >$400,000/year), so what chance does that have? But, sounds good to me. Not sure how else you sustain the program.

The act does this without cutting benefits. In fact, it increases them: An across-the-board benefit increase of about 2%, a better cost-of-living adjustment, and an increase in the minimum benefit. To pay for those increased benefits and to address the actuarial deficit, the act would increase the Social Security payroll tax from its current 6.2% to 7.4% in increments over the next 24 years, for both employee and employer, and begin levying the Social Security payroll tax on earnings above $400,000. (Currently that tax isn’t levied on income above $132,900, which means that, if this act became law, income between $132,900 and $400,000 would be untaxed.)

That latter strategy is what I generally use. One delegates country allocation to the fund manager of diversified foreign funds. By implication one is delegating EM allocation as well, unless one chooses a not-so-diversified foreign fund where the manager is limited to investing just in developed markets.
Of roughly 500 diversified foreign funds (i.e. foreign large or small cap; value, blend, or growth) in M*'s online database, a little over 1/3 fall into the 10% to 25% EM range. So while these funds are not rare, one may need to seek them out. (Add in funds having even higher EM exposure and the total percentage rises to around 2/5 of foreign funds.)

You better be a very disciplined investor to do that. Although the long term returns for EM might be good, they are extremely inconsistent. Spectacular returns some years, punctuated by equally bad returns other years. Even in good or average years, volatility is typically high. Personally, I wish that I had never invested in EM, but I’ve been in it so long that I figure that it’s due for a rebound. BTW, many diversified foreign funds hold 10-25% in EM stocks, which is probably enough for most investors.

Without discussing the merits of the proposal, let me highlight one paragraph:

On the cost side, the act would increase the Social Security tax rate by 1.2 percentage points, for both you as well as your employer. Landis downplays the significance of that increase, since it will take place over 24 years, meaning that the increase in any given year (for both you and your employer) will be 0.05 of a percentage point. He says that his “grocery and gasoline bills change more than that every month.”

While the price of your gasoline bill may fluctuate more than that every month, the rate of taxes on your gas bill doesn't.
This is important because we're talking tax rates, not dollars. Your wages go up year by year, which means that your payroll tax goes up year by year even when the tax rate remains constant. Increase the rate and you've now got two sources of higher taxes - increasing wages and an increasing percentage. Its a flawed analogy.
Regarding print friendly format: Had Gary done that, I wouldn't have seen all the reader comments. Specifically, Dink Singer (Marketwatch comments) seems very good on fact checking and filling in info.

All funds incorporate the expenses of their underlying funds as part of their total expense ratio. One of the knocks against funds of funds is that they slather a second layer of fees on top of those expenses.
For example, from M*'s classroom:

So what's the catch? Expenses, mostly. The fund of funds structure creates a double layer of costs. First, there are the expenses associated with running the fund of funds itself—management fees, administrative costs, etc. Second, there are the costs associated with the underlying funds—the same sorts of management fees, administrative costs, and so on.

By purchasing Investor class shares while qualifying for Institutional class shares, VTTVX is skimming investors' money and using it to make it seem that there's no second layer of costs. Vanguard certainly does claim a 0% management fee for VTTVX.
From the prospectus:

Fees and Expenses
The following table describes the fees and expenses you may pay if you buy and hold shares of the Fund. ...
Annual Fund Operating Expenses
(Expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)

---

Management Fees                    None

---

12b-1 Distribution Fee               None

---

Other Expenses                         None

---

Acquired Fund Fees and Expenses 0.13%

---

Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses 0.13%

---

Compare that with the way Fidelity reports the fees in its funds of index funds. No deception there.
The acquired fees cost is 10 basis points lower. Fidelity uses fairly priced index funds while Vanguard uses overpriced Investor class shares that exists for no other reason than to be used in these funds of funds.
On the other hand, Fidelity calls out a true second layer of costs rather than reporting all those costs as "None".
From FQIFX summary prospectus:

Fee Table
The following table describes the fees and expenses that may be incurred when you buy and hold shares of the Fund. ...
Annual Fund Operating Expenses
(expenses that you pay each year as a % of the value of your investment)
Management fees                                  None
Distribution and/or Service (12b-1) fees None
Other expenses                                     0.15%
Acquired fund fees and expenses         0.03%
Total annual operating expenses     0.18%

Hi @MikeM2: My two emerging market funds are both by American Funds. They are NEWFX which is held in the growth area of my portfolio and DWGAX which is held in the growth & income area. Combined, my emerging market exposure according to a recent Xray analysis amounts to a little better than five percent of my equity allocation. Being retired I'm not aggressively invested as my target asset allocation is 20% cash, 40% income and 40% equity. However, I might buy a little more DWGAX as it pays a quarterly dividend since my current investment focus is to invest in income generating securities. Currently, I'm a little overweight equities due to thier strong run over the past couple of months. In addition, I looking to add a sliver of micro caps to my equity allocation.
I'll be rebalancing my portfolio towards the last part of March or first part of April. In this process I've been thinking of moving my commodity strategy fund PCLAX to my hybrid income sleeve since it pays a strong quarterly dividend (TTM 16%). This should provide an open to buy in the growth area where I can add a micro cap fund. I've been looking at WMMAX. Hopefully, within my growth and income area with quarterly dividends being paid this month will also provide some open to buy room to add to my DWGAX position which I'll fund from portfolio dividend income.
I'm not of the camp to make emerging markets my sole foreign exposure.

Has anyone ever considered this? Is anyone doing this now? If you are doing it now are you retired or not?
EM valuations are attractive but outperformance is lumpy.
My EM is Seafarer G/I(which came to my attention on these boards,THNX), Matthews G/I. I have a slug of American funds that I am considering deploying to AF New World which buys EM stocks or stocks that obtain a significant amount of earnings from EM markets(small slug of EM bonds too).
This would make my EM 15% of the portfolio. I realize that the G/I funds are not pure EM but they lean that way.
Regards,
MikeM2

@Gary: MarketWatch, Barron's along with WSJ are owned by Dow Jones. However, you still go to the head of the class, but suggest you link the printer friendy format whenever possible.
Regards,
Ted :)
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-social-security-proposal-could-be-something-to-get-excited-about-2019-02-26/print

It's in marketwach - You can avoid Barrons pay wall crap. Dpnt know why they hijacked this - must be a slow day!
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-social-security-proposal-could-be-something-to-get-excited-about-2019-02-26?mod=article_inline

By keeping the Investor shares around, and by using those Investor shares in VTTVX, Vanguard is able to collect an extra 0.11% in fees while claiming to have a 0% management fee on VTTVX. This is deceptive.

But Vanguard doesn't claim this at all. On their fund page for VTTVX, they clearly report an expense ratio of 0.13%, which includes the fees of the underlying funds. Nowhere do they claim that they have a 0% fee. Anyone can plainly see that the "Target Retirement" funds like VTTVX are more expensive than the plain index funds -- no deception here.

FYI: Do you ever get excited by policy proposals to address the Social Security funding shortfall?
You might think that anyone who does needs to get a life. In fact, however, many retirees and soon-to-retirees snap to attention when legislation is introduced to address the Social Security system’s actuarial deficit. The system is currently slated to run out of money in 2034.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.barrons.com/articles/a-social-security-proposal-thats-worth-getting-excited-about-51551614400?mod=djem_b_Weekly barrons_daily_newsletter

Ahhh, mid 40's. I was there once.

...when I hit retirement I still expect to still be practically all-in on equities as I am now in my mid-40s. While I won't be 'diversified' across so-called "asset classes" I will be 'diversified' by my own comfort levels,

@rforno , I wouldn't recommend that in retirement without a cash bucket (another asset class), unless you don't need to withdraw from your savings. Withdrawing from a full-in equity portfolio during a bear market could be detrimental to your savings, especially if that bear market is at the start of retirement. So if you had that cash bucket, 1, 3, 5 years, whatever your comfort level is, I think 100% equity for the remaining portfolio is perfectly fine for a risk taker like yourself. Probably do better than most.

And no, I don't care about LC/MC/SC G/B/V designations

I don't disagree with you on this at all, but you know these are not asset classes.

Those who criticize others for having too many funds ignore a common reality. Many investors have different accounts with different funds available to invest in, making it virtually impossible to simplify beyond a certain point. My wife and I both have separate 401Ks, a necessity, which do not have balanced or target funds as options. We both have separate Rollover and Roth IRAs, as well as a joint investment account. That means that we have 7 different accounts with a range of investment options. We have simplified to a degree, but I’m not willing to roll over our 401Ks to our IRAs because the 401Ks have advantages such as stable value funds, automatic rebalancing and very low cost index funds.

It sounds like what @Investor is thinking of is index linked annuities. Just one of many ways of wrapping the same structured product. See also structured notes, equity linked CDs.
Conceptually there's nothing wrong with these, if their risk reward profile is what you're looking for. The basic principal protected variant is essentially just a combo of a zero coupon bond that has a maturity value equal to your investment, and index options bought by whatever is left over after buying the zero.
For details, see Equity Linked Notes, an Introduction (Pay no attention to the fact that this was published by Lehman Bros. :-))
The problem is more with the way these are sold. First, while these come in many forms, the one that's pushed is the highest cost one, the VA. Second and more generally, the fee institutions extract for the relatively simple bundling process is often too high.
Getting back to insured asset allocation - this appears to be an approach to asset allocation as others have described. Like @hank, I did a quick search. It seems hard to find "first tier" sites discussing this.
The little bit that I've seen seems to suggest that this strategy may lock you into an all cash portfolio. The closer your portfolio comes to your minimum acceptable value, the more you're supposed to shift into cash.
The example given here has a $1M and an $800K floor to protect. The portfolio value is thus $200K above the floor. Based on that "excess", a stock/cash allocation is calculated.
The closer you fall toward the floor, the smaller the excess is and thus the less you allocate to equity. This can continue until you get so close to your floor that you've got virtually everything in cash (which has grown all the way to $800K in the example). At this point you've got no equity, no way to dig yourself out of the hole. All you're guaranteed is that you won't fall further.
A variant of Zeno's paradox. You may never reach 100% cash, but you'll get so close that the difference (excess) won't really matter.

I used to think that Target Date funds were not pretty good investments. But they have improved and costs have come down significantly. I think most investors will do just fine with a low cost target date fund. People have better things to do with their lives than watch their investments. We do it because it is our hobby in a way.
When I changed jobs (while being away from MFO), I have selected Target Date fund for my 401k investments at the new company. Initially I was thinking well I have no monies in the new account, when it grows up sufficiently I will do allocation myself, besides I am too busy with new job and a few other personal things in my life. I think it is a decent investment for most people and I would even claim that "most people" probably includes many of us here.
Do you want a bit more diversification than target date funds add a bit more small cap 5% and small cap international 5% (or 10% global small cap). Step up the target date fund to next higher bond allocation to sooth the extra volatility due to small cap and you are pretty good to go.

Well, maybe it is one of those cosmic coincidences, but Western Asset (a Legg Mason subsidiary) recently introduced a very similarly named ETF, Western Asset Short Duration Income ETF.
With an inception date of 02-07-2019 and a 29 bp ER:

https://www.etf.com/WINC
https://www.leggmason.com/en-us/products/exchange-traded-funds/western-asset-short-duration-income-etf.html
https://www.leggmason.com/en-us/products/mutual-funds/western-asset-short-term-yield-fund.html
[Sponsored Article] https://www.etf.com/sections/etf-industry-perspective/legg-mason-case-active-short-duration-income

Was the closing fund [LGSYX, et al.] a placeholder for the ETF? Or simply a 'hedge', in case the rollout for the ETF was delayed? Hmmm....
FUND (56 bp ER)
Seeks to generate current income and a low sensitivity to interest rate volatility via an actively managed fixed income strategy focused on U.S. dollar-denominated investment grade securities...
Total portfolio effective duration is expected to be one year or less while average effective maturity is expected to be 18 months or less. In any event, average effective maturity will be three years or less.
ETF (29 bp ER)
The Western Asset Short Duration Income ETF is an actively managed, low duration (0-3 years) fixed income strategy that seeks current income via a diversified portfolio with an emphasis on lower interest rate sensitivity, higher credit quality and active credit selection.
Low Duration. An effective average duration target of 3 years or less.

SAI: "As of October 31, 2018, Legg Mason, Inc., 100 International Drive, Baltimore, Maryland 21202, owned of record 25% or more of Short Term Yield Fund’s outstanding shares."
Whitehurst is just the contact (c/o) name given for Legg Mason here.
That, plus the fact that Western Assets is a Legg Mason line of funds, suggest that Legg Mason has been using this fund internally simply as a place to hold cash (or to invest easily in ultra-short bonds, take your pick).
There are lots of fund families that do things like that, though I'm not going to go looking for them and checking on how they list their principal owners.

I hadn’t heard this term before. A bit hard running it down, but did come across an Investopedia article that discusses it as one allocation approach.
https://www.investopedia.com/investing/6-asset-allocation-strategies-work/
Each will have his / her own take on this. I get the general drift that the approach is designed to cut losses. But it runs contrary to everything I know and feel about investing. Would you sell your home if its assessed value fell below a certain level? How about the vacant lot in the neighborhood you bought for spec? Or the antique auto you own and admire?
When I invest in funds I’m investing in the underlying assets (companies, commodities, gold, infrastructure, secured debt, etc.). I expect these will vary in value over the years (as a home might). But if I believe it’s worthwhile owning those underlying assets, than why would I sell them just because their market value dropped?
I remain optimistic that over the longer term (10+ years) a well diversified portfolio that has exposure to many types of investments (read: not 100% invested in VFINX or TRBCX) will keep me at least on pace with inflation - and probably somewhat ahead of it. Generally, I’d rather own “things” than pieces of paper with $$ signs printed on them.
—
@DavidV - I have not addressed the issue of age (which you mention). Your question seemed to be more about a specific allocation strategy. I’m aware 2 or 3 prominent board members mentioned during the past year that they were moving almost entirely to cash. The reasons seemed to be related primarily to age. IMHO that’s an entirely separate decision that everyone with the help of family and friends needs to make at some point. Call it an “allocation strategy” if you like. Whatever works. :)
(I’m not a qualified financial advisor.)