Good article. Maybe I think that because this approach is what I do. 1/2 my tax deffered retirement money is in a stable index investing robo-portfolio and the other 1/2 I self manage.
Definition I found for smart beta:

Smart beta strategies attempt to deliver a better risk and return trade-off than conventional market cap weighted indices by using alternative weighting schemes based on measures such as volatility or dividends.

are long-term in nature and by no means tactical.

This appears to be your opinion. I don't see any definitions using this caveat in my short check of Google.
And the author says:

A core-satellite approach is a great way to focus on long-term capital growth, while still allowing for the opportunity to juice returns through active portfolio management.

I don't know, seems like a similar approach to me.

Sorta sounds like what I’ve gravitated to over the years. Except I don’t use index funds. Core = a diversified balanced portfolio (about a dozen funds) that rarely gets traded. Pretty much a sleep-well mix. Flexible portion = cash / cash-like holdings plus riskier investments. The Flex part I can vary at will.
As I’ve aged, I’ve slowly increased the Core portion from around 50% two decades ago to 75% today. By the time I’m too old to remember who I am, I hope to have moved to 100% Core. Than I’ll keep my hands off everything and just let it ride.
Not a recommendation for others. Not going to beat the market either. A good sleep well approach that keeps ya from mucking things up too badly.

FYI: U.S. insurer MetLife Inc on Tuesday said internal failures that resulted in its not making payments to thousands of pensioners stretched back a quarter of a century and it would take a major effort this year to fix the problems.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.fa-mag.com/news/metlife-says-pension-failures-go-back-25-years-37158.html?print
Its All Because They Dumped Snoopy And The Peanuts Gang:
http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/20/investing/metlife-snoopy-peanuts-blimp/index.html

Outflows amounted to 8 percent of the fund’s total assets at the start of the week, a rate of withdrawals not seen since August 2010.
The five-session stampede for the exits erased the previous nine weeks of inflows into the fund, which is issued by State Street. The combination of price declines and withdrawals erased $38.6 billion in SPY’s assets. That’s nearly double the second-worst showing of $19.4 billion in asset shrinkage during the week ending Aug. 21, 2015.

This outflow amounts to program selling. VIX spiked up widely in last two weeks.

FYI: How about this, party people – Listerine was originally invented 135 years ago to cure gonorrhea. And then forty years later it became a mouthwash. True story.
Regards,
Ted
http://thereformedbroker.com/2018/02/12/passive-my-a/

It turns out that was mere lip service. The administration proposes spending a measly $20 billion a year -- or $200 billion of the $1.5 trillion total -- for a decade.

How true! More details on its impact on the local government and muni bond market from Brookings Institute.
https://brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2017/12/26/how-the-new-tax-bill-will-cut-infrastructure-investment/

M* reports a drawdown for SGENX of 36.3% (5/19/08 - 3/6/09), or if you want to keep it within 2008, a drawdown of 34.9% (5/19/08 - 11/20/08).
Here's the cumulative return chart for the wider range (you can mouse over to get returns for shorter periods).
FWIW, Yahoo Finance closing and adjusted closing prices for these dates are:
05/19/08: $46.50 ($32.31 adjusted)
11/20/08: $30.21 ($21.03 adjusted)
03/06/09: $27.59 ($20.61 adjusted, after div of $2.453 on 12/17/08)
Give or take rounding error of 0.1%, the Yahoo and M* figures match.
MFO may have different (smaller) drawdown figures because of differences in defining "drawdown". I just sort of eyeballed it, looking for the highest (not last) peak before a general downward trend. Likewise, I looked for the lowest (not earliest) trough before a general upward trend. Shorten the period by using a later peak and earlier trough and the drawdown will be less.
Regardless, SGENX dropped about 35% between May and November 2008 - whether you want to consider that one drawdown or a sequence of drawdowns. And it lost even more over the stretch from May 2008 to March of 2009.
P.S. I assumed that a 30% calendar year loss was intended as a proxy for a higher maximum acceptable loss (e.g. 3/8 or 37.5%) over the full decline (from Spring 2008 to Spring 2009). I'm not aware of "real" funds (e.g. excluding MMFs, Treasuries, and such) that declined less than 30% overall.

10:37 p.m. all ok here. western Massachusetts.

I misread 2008 crisis as 2008 calendar year. The SGENX SGOVX allocation funds had maximum drawdowns of 32.6 and 32.1 respectively, even with their allocations to bonds and gold, so I would be curious to know which international/world funds bettered that performance.

Hassan Elmasry, Michael Allison, Jayson Vowles, Paras Dodhia (left IFP in 2015)

Hardly surprising is that active funds generally have a fair amount of cash , Index funds do not.There is an argument that active fund should be benchmarked/compared to 90 or 95% index and 5 or 10% cash.THat will at least show whether there is good stock picking.

FYI: It doesn't come close to spending enough to fix the nation's roads, bridges and tunnels.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-13/trump-s-huge-infrastructure-plan-is-a-flop

FYI: Did a bear-market signal ring on Friday when the S&P 500 Index dipped below its 200-day moving average?
Yes, according to a decades-long tenet of technical analysis.
As for me, I’m not so sure. The 200-day moving average’s historical track record isn’t as good as its devotees claim. In recent decades, its performance has taken a big turn for the worse.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/you-can-no-longer-trust-the-200-day-moving-average-as-a-stock-market-indicator-2018-02-13/print

FYI: For years, it’s been the same refrain. Don’t bail on active management, you’ll regret it when the market turns sour.
And while the selloff that ripped through equities this month has been too short to prove anything, early returns suggest they had a point. Thanks to differentiated bets on stocks, equity mutual funds beat benchmarks across the board from Jan. 29 to Feb. 6, with those in the large-cap growth style doing best, data compiled by UBS AG show.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-13/active-funds-shined-in-selloff-just-like-they-said-they-would

I remember (gett'in more difficult as the clock ticks) about 30 years ago, having a casual conversation(s) with a Merrill Lynch broker, his work of the style of the day; at a desk, touch tone phone at hand.
This gentleman seemed out of place for the type of work he was required to perform, being the cold phone call or an existing client call to buy this or that, per the recommendation of the company (ML). He was near the end of his career and had made a decent income for his family.
I didn't know him well at all, was not a client; but we "clicked" as to chatting about the markets in general. His view and understanding over his 30 year career is that there are "funny" things that happen in the markets, a type of "rigged"; and hopefully we as individual investors should not be affected.
Anyway, the article linked regarding the VIX, etc.; and perhaps more so to the technology of the day. Hopefully, the markets won't be in a future tizzy when a solar flare takes out 20% of the communications satellites.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-13/vix-manipulation-costs-investors-billions-whistle-blower-says
Take care,
Catch

Re HSIEX. I’m missing something here. Lipper scores it lowest (1) on: Total Return, Consistent Return and Expenses. (But rates it highest (5) for Preservation). Shows a negative return for 3 years. What’s to like here?

I guess what I'm saying is that maybe your criterion is not realistic.

There ya go. I was wondering the same thing. T. Rowe’s Spectrum International (PSILX) lost over 40% in ‘08 or I would have nominated it. Not exactly what you’d call an aggressive fund. International funds generally got hit harder than domestic in ‘08.

ARTKX is close with 30.11% loss, but you already own ARTGX managed by the same managers.

Is ARTKX open again? It's been closed to new investors for years, and M* still shows it that way. Recent announcement?

FYI: The S&P 500’s swift 10% fall fall from its all time high qualifies as a full blown correction. History shows odds are good that equities will be higher the next six to 12 months.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.morganstanleyfa.com/public/projectfiles/gicweekly.pdf

So, at 2.06% fee, Centaur is making 309K per year in fees to hold on to 55% of the fund that is cash. Then they are making money with the 15 million. That is a sweet deal!