I disregard the expense ratio because many bond indexes expense is very cheap but it's a plane without a pilot. BND, one of the most recommended indexes lost a lot in 2022 and made less than 1% in 2023.
Treasury ladder didn't help you either because treasuries are not where you want to be.

It certainly would make using MFO superfluous, as it looks like they take complete control over all your assets, at least for larger accounts.
That's the idea of a discretionary account - you specify the parameters and the manager, well, manages the account.
But there's nothing precluding you from having both PAS and self-managed accounts at Vanguard. Though I suspect Vanguard would frown on you putting 10% of your assets into PAS and mirroring the PAS account for free with your remaining 90%.

Let us know whether PAS puts you into any of their three PAS-only funds (VADGX, VAGVX, VAIGX) or into VHCAX / VHCOX (closed except to Flagship and PAS customers).
https://corporate.vanguard.com/content/corporatesite/us/en/corp/who-we-are/pressroom/Press-release-Vanguard-Personal-Advisor-Services-Introduces-Five-Fund-Active-Equity-Offer-110921.html
I disagree with the idea that one should never use a single brokerage firm.
One can achieve diversity of advice (if that's an objective) with independent advisors who happen to use the same brokerage platform. (I don't seek advice and actively discourage brokers who want to "touch base" with me.)
SIPC and excess coverage takes care of the possibility the brokerage might abscond with your securities. Bernie Madoff aside, that's a low probability event, even lower at major brokerages.
I use multiple brokerages, but that's because I can get cheaper access (lower mins, lower fees, or cheaper shares) at different brokerages for different securities. Otherwise, I'd be looking at consolidating further.
FWIW, I have not had any unexpected difficulties working with Vanguard. Expected difficulties have included Vanguard's rigid adherence to rules (make sure you understand them carefully), and as you've discovered, long wait times and limited hours. PAS service is indeed better than self-directed investor service.

Hi @SMA3,
Taxes are complex and the tax preparer knows the taxes best. With companies like Fidelity and Vanguard, I suspect that an investor will be dealing mostly with an external tax accountant. My experiences are that the tax accountant will not be familiar with the implications of Medicare on taxes. This is an area where I find an investor will benefit from financial literacy and double check on advice given. I have not dealt with independent financial planners that may be a one stop shop?
Regarding financial convictions and disclosures, an employee was convicted in 2019 of theft:
"The total amount of the funds that the defendant stole exceeded $2.1 million. To Vanguard’s credit, all individual accounts were made whole after the defendant’s crimes were detected."
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/former-vanguard-employee-sentenced-four-years-fraud-scheme
The disclosures from the SEC are mostly minor:
https://files.adviserinfo.sec.gov/IAPD/content/viewform/adv/Sections/iapd_AdvDrpSection.aspx?ORG_PK=105958&FLNG_PK=005984D6000801D203A190C104921F01056C8CC0#Regulatory
Lynn

Here's the timeline, so far as I can reconstruct it from the SEC record. Chip will tweak the article to clean up the 2009/2010 confusion.
On November 10, 1988, Fasciano Fund launches.
On March 23, 2001, the Neuberger Berman Fasciano Fund acquired 100% of the assets and liabilities of the Fasciano Fund (as a cost of $94,278.79).

Beside the scenes: On March 20, 2008, Judith Vale And Robert D'Alelio are appointed as the managers for Neuberger Berman Fasciano. On March 26, 2008, the Board of Trustees approved the merger of Neuberger Berman Fasciano Fund into Neuberger Berman Genesis Fund. In June 2008, Mr. Fasciano launches Fasciano Associates in Chicago and bides his time.

On August 15, 2008, Neuberger Berman Genesis acquired all of the net assets of Neuberger Berman Fasciano Fund.
On December 30, 2009, Aston/Fasciano Small Cap Fund launches.
On December 30, 2010, Aston/Fasciano liquidates, following Mr. Fasciano’s October decision to do so.

Many may not be following these details. But using the formula in Treasury LINK provided by @msf, I was able to verify the data for the recent 52-wk Auction.
In the recent 52-week Auction example in the OP, TR = 5.392% (calculated) and i = 5.351%, d = 363 (Treasury data).
So, 1 + 0.01*TR = (1 + 0.05351/2)*[1 + 0.05351*(363 - 365/2)/365],
or, TR = 5.3925%, and that is close enough to 5.392%.
LINK2

I was groggy. I'll fix the dates at the end. Aston/Fasciano (which became AMG Aston Fasciano was in operation for about 12 months. MF was underwriting operations to the tune of about 150K per year and didn't see that changing within a reasonable time frame.
Fasciano Associates, today, doesn't have a website and I couldn't find a Form ADV for it. Mike has a LinkedIn but has never posted. The regulatory filings place the HQ at his home in Lake Forest. From that, I'm assuming he's now a "private investor" which sort of looks like being retired.
David

Thanks so much for the extensive work on Vanguard. It is interesting that they really do not lower their fees the more money you have ( the first $5 million pays the same 0.03% as $5000 ) but I wonder what that gets you. It certainly would make using MFO superfluous, as it looks like they take complete control over all your assets, at least for larger accounts.
The CFA, tax planning and income projections might be very helpful, but is there a way to get the planning without committing to their assuming control of all the investments?
Anybody know why down at the bottom of the list there are felony and misdemeanor convictions on Vanguard's track record ( but none at Fidelity, which has a higher star rating)?
https://investor.com/rias/vanguard-advisers-106715

David I hope Chip is getting better, but please don't over exert yourselves just to publish MFO! there are many capable other people who wrote great articles this month and while there is probably no data that pushing yourself during Covid recovery delays the recovery, why chance it?
I really enjoyed the reference to Mathers Fund.
Maybe a few other grey beards here will remember the Mathers fund and good old Henry Van der Erb. His commentaries were pretty good, ala Hussman. While I didn't put much money into the fund, his commentaries kept me from being 100% equities for a few years in my 30s, when I really should have dumped everything into the market.
I never knew Bruce ran the Mathers fund before Henry, nor did I know Van der Erb was such a jerk

Unfortunately, bond ladders also have a duration. A 10-yr bond ladder may have a duration around 4-5 years.
So, the ETF PLW has duration 10.80 (M* Portfolio tab below) and SD 9.07 (M* Risk tab) - plenty volatile!
https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/xnas/plw/portfolio
But if you had a private/DIY ladder, you would let each bond in the ladder mature at par, so the duration effect will be only if you have to liquidate ladder prematurely, not otherwise.
Just because a fund uses the term "ladder" doesn't mean that it will act as private/DIY ladder. Some DIY stuff you really have to do yourself and cannot farm it out to funds.

I have never invested directly in a treasury fund because this category has a high correlation to rates and rates are unpredictable short term. PLW did poorly YTD. See a YTD chart of VGIT(inter Gov/treasury) + DODIX(good generic higher rated bond fund) + PLW(has a longer duration > 10 years). (https://schrts.co/AEsZUCwD)
You can see that DODIX has the best performance + the lowest volatility. PLW has the worse performance + the highest volatility of 7.5+%.(peak to trough).

@msf, thanks for Treasury and CFR links. I will go over them.
Interesting that calculations are different for < 6 months (an approximation) and 6-12 months (exact calculations).
There are 4 examples presented in the Treasury link. The first two (#1, #2) use 360-day year for price and discount rate calculations, the other two (#3, #4) use 365/366 days for coupon-equivalent yield.
In examples #3 and #4, the first full 6-month period is defined as 365/2 =182.5 or 366/2 = 183. So, it is possible that Treasury just defaults to 360-day year convention in the approximation used for less than 6 months rather than using "odd" 182.5 or 183 days.
I was also solving quadratic equation for interest rate in my notes (and shown in this BB LINK), but I didn't present those details elsewhere as the results weren't matching anyway with the Treasury calculations. But I see that Treasury is using 2 unequal compounding periods while I was using 2 identical periods for compounding (and the same as you did in your plain English bond example.
Lot of food for thought.

@hank: I’ve never built a Treasury ladder and I am loathe to let PLW do it for me. It went to the top of M*’s class by losing 3.76% in 2021, 19.97% in 2022, and 0.99% YTD. It must be a tough racket, that Treasury stuff. How much did the middling or lousy funds lose during those periods?

According to several web sources, Treasury simply uses this formula for Coupon-Equivalent Yield of T-Bills,
Coupon-Equivalent Yield = 100*[(Par Value - Purchase Price)/Purchase Price]* 360/d, where d = days to maturity.

Which just goes to show that you can't believe everything you read on the web. (In all fairness, the second post in the Bogleheads thread correctly says that 365 days are used and references the same Treasury sources I'm relying on below. Except it misses an added complication for T-bills maturing in more than six months.)
According to the Treasury (the authoritative source), the above formula is not what is used for Coupon Equivalent Yield of T-bills. It is almost correct for T-bills maturing in six months or less, except that the correct formula uses 365 or 366 day years. For T-bills with longer maturities (still under a year), a quadratic equation must be solved.
Some people may not be clear about what Coupon Equivalent Yield represents.

The Coupon Equivalent, also called the Bond Equivalent, or the Investment Yield, is the bill's yield based on the purchase price, discount, and a 365- or 366-day year. The Coupon Equivalent can be used to compare the yield on a discount bill to the yield on a nominal coupon security that pays semiannual interest with the same maturity date.

https://home.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/interest-rates/TextView?type=daily_treasury_bill_rates&field_tdr_date_value_month=202209
In plain English, if you have a bond with a 4% coupon purchased at par ($100), then every six months it pays $2. To compute the annualized rate of return one assumes that the coupons are reinvested at the original rate. So after one year, one would have:
$100 x (1 + 2%) x (1 + 2%) = $100 x 1.0404 = $104.04. That's an annual yield of 4.04%.
T-bills don't have coupons, but if they did, this particular T-bill would pay coupons at an annual rate of 5.351%. That is, a six month coupon would pay half of that, or 2.6755%.
When one applies the same compounding as above (though reducing the second coupon by 2 days simple interest), one finds that the government figures are correct:

Rate (i)		5.351%
Price per $100		$94.883778
Days in 2024 (y)	366
1/2 year coupon		2.6755%		(1/2 X 5.351%)
Total days to maturity	364
2nd half frac of year	0.494535519	(364 - 366/2) / 366
2nd half coupon		2.6463%		(0.494... x 5.351%)

Compounding the coupons as before (except the second coupon isn't for a complete half year):
(1 + 2.6755%) x (1 + 2.6463%) = 105.3926%.
As in the OP, 5.392% is the actual total return. It is higher than the six month (coupon equivalent) yield, because coupons compound.
This is important. New issue T-bills have APYs greater than their coupon equivalent yields.
If a new six month T-bill has a 5.0% "coupon equivalent yield" it will pay 2.5% (half of 5%) after six months by definition. That would compound to 5.06&frac14;% APY if reinvested at the same rate for another six months. That beats a six month CD with a 5.0% APY, paying just 2.47% at its six month maturity.
Treasury page with coupon equivalent yield formulae, examples
Treasury Regulation (Code of Federal Regulations) rules on calculating T-bill discount rates.
Note that the 360 day calendar is used when calculating the bank discount rate, but a 365 or 366 day calendar is used when calculating the "true discount" rate.

I was a relatively early investor in the original Fasciano Fund. I made a modest initial investment and received a hand-written letter of thanks from Mike Fasciano. I was impressed. A few years later I sold my shares when enough changes had occurred that I could no longer tell for sure who owned the fund or what its name was. Today reading the updated story I am finding some oddities. I am reading that the launch of ASAFX was in December of 2009 and its dissolution occurred two months earlier in October 2009. This is a typo or an anachronistic anomaly, or... ? And after reading the entire article I'm not sure if Michael Fasciano is retired or has returned to managing a fund. I think this may be because there are elements in the article from 2010 that were accurate at the time.

Speaking of volatility, I’m getting the sense that short sellers are currently very active in the long Treasury markets. These guys can be merciless and drive out smaller investors. I don’t know what that implies from an investment standpoint. Just be aware of the game being played and that that contributes to volatility - especially on big down days.
PLW is an ETF investing in a Treasury ladder. (But it might behave differently than building your own ladder.) A number of folks here build their own.
”The investment (PLW) seeks to track the investment results (before fees and expenses) of the Ryan/Nasdaq U.S. 1-30 Year Treasury Laddered Index. The fund generally will invest at least 80% of its total assets in the components of the index. Strictly in accordance with its guidelines and mandated procedures, Nasdaq, Inc. oversees the index, and which seeks to measure the potential returns of a theoretical portfolio of U.S. Treasury securities with a yield curve based upon 30 distinct annual maturities.” From Morningstar
I don’t do ladders - but laddering on your own makes a lot of sense. Others may have suggestions.

11 August, 2023:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2023-08-11/bloomberg-real-yield-08-11-23

11 August, 2023:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2023-08-12/wall-street-week-08-11-2023

Thanks, @WABAC. I appreciate your specificity and I follow the moves you’ve posted previously.

de nada @BenWP.
PE on SYLD is still quite low. And I like the thesis for a long-term holding. FSUTX is off a little bit this year after coming through last year, so a little bump there.
All part of the process of concentrating the IRA, if Mr. Market will cooperate. I have lots of stragglers after pulling flowers at the end of 2021 to feed weeds. AKA re-balancing.
I am eyeing at least one new addition, That would be WBALX when one of my CD's matures in October. I prefer to add bonds in ways that I don't have to think about them beyond credit quality and duration. So I hide them in balanced funds, but also DSEEX.
NTF WBALX should pair nicely with my position in VWINX which has a rather high transaction fee at Fido.

August 12,2023 Episode:

Investing can be simple and accessible to the average person, says financial thought leader and economist Burton Malkiel. Malkiel, author of the investment classic “A Random Walk Down Wall Street,” has 50 years of research to back up his claim.