Vanguard Core-Plus Bond Fund will officially launch on October 25.
There is a subscription period which will start around October 12.
Link

Some of those top holdings are just the companies I love to hate. Crap. But I can't pull out now.

“… for those … who might be wondering, if you put a dollar into the S&P, 41 cents goes toward Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Facebook, with 59 cents going into the other 495 names.”
Bill Fleckenstein - “Market Rap” (paid subscription) 9/14/21

Yes. The page loads if it feels like it. Sometimes it's just blank. Using Safari on a MacBook Pro OS ver 11.5.2

For clarity - regulations are enacted by the executive branch, consistent with stautues enacted by Congress. For example, 17 CFR § 240.10b5-1, aka Rule 10b5(1), concerning Trading “on the basis of” material nonpublic information in insider trading cases, was promulgated by the SEC in accordance with Section 10(b) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934.
In fact, the SEC chair is currently considering beefing up this rule. Legislation not required.
https://www.sidley.com/en/insights/newsupdates/2021/06/sec-enhances-focus-on-rule-10b5-1-plans-what-should-companies-do-now
Since 2012 when the STOCK Act was passed, Congress has been subject to more or less the same rules as everyone else. One can make the case that Congress should be subject to more stringent laws, and for that, legislation would be required.

Let's try backing up and going through this again, slowly.
I wondered how the differences in methodologies might effect the composition of the fund as a result of the change.
The methodologies here are of two indexes. Ideally then one would compare the indexes themselves. Unfortunately, since one of those indexes (Nasdaq US Dividend Achievers Select Index) is proprietary, it's impossible to get data directly about the index. (This illustrates why one of the promoted advantages of index funds - transparency via the underling index - is sometimes less than advertised.) So BaluBalu used VDADX as a proxy for the Nasdaq index.
To its credit, Vanguard is moving this fund from an opaque index to a transparent one.
People generally look at funds in terms of average (mean) market cap. When they ask whether a fund is large-, mid-, or small-cap, they are looking at where the fund's average market cap falls. When they do screening on fund market caps, they are screening on average market cap. And so on.
There are two points here. One is that a discussion of average (mean) market caps is on point because the question is about how these two indexes compare. Average market cap is a part of that comparison. The other is that the use of median rather than average (mean) market cap as a basis of comparison seems a little odd given the greater familiarity with mean market cap. For both these reasons, I will continue to discuss mean market cap as well as median.
Vanguard reports the mean market cap of VDADX (as of June 30) to be $262.8B (vs. $262.6B for the underlying index). In comparison, S&P reports the mean market cap of the replacement index to be $53.3B. As this 5:1 ratio is huge, albeit not nearly as large as the 13:1 ratio of median market caps reported, it raises the same question: is this large difference for real?
That question has the same answer for either average: The discrepancy is due to the fact that S&P calculates unweighted averages (both mean and median), while Vanguard calculates weighted averages.
How would one know this? One way would be simply as a result of due diligence - reading the fund's statutory prospectus, hardly something obscure or difficult to find. In it, one sees:

Median Market Capitalization. ...the midpoint of market capitalization (market price x shares outstanding) of a fund’s stocks, weighted by the proportion of the fund’s assets invested in each stock. Stocks representing half of the fund’s assets have market capitalizations above the median, and the rest are below it.

As far as knowing that the average (mean) market cap figures given by funds are weighted, I take that as a given. As noted above, most people look at market cap numbers (or market cap ranges/style boxes) when carefully researching funds. So we can assume that most people understand what these figures represent.
Average market caps are a very familiar quantity. Forget about Vanguard. Even Blackrock, another large purveyor of index funds, posts average market cap figures without seeing the need to add a footnote that the averages are weighted. I understand people's zeal in ragging exclusively on Vanguard, but in this case the narrow focus is misplaced.
Because VDADX is a market-cap weighted fund, the proportion of the fund's assets invested in each stock is proportional to the market cap of that stock. So weighting each holding by the dollars invested is tantamount to weighting each holding by its market cap.
A trivial hypothetical can illustrate this: Assume three companies, A (market cap $2B), B (market cap $3B), and C (market cap $4B), and a market cap weighted fund holding these three companies. So their weights would be in the ratio 2:3:4.
We would compute the weighted mean as:
2/9 x $2B (A) + 3/9 x $3B (B) + 4/9 x $4B (C)
Notice that aside from scaling (dividing by 9), the summands are the squares of the market caps: 2², 3² and 4².
Again appealing to the fact that "everyone" understands and works with weighted average market caps, I'll skip illustrating why weighting presents a better picture than relying on unweighted averages.
I hope I've covered all the comments, from whataboutism to why market cap weighting is relevant to the squaring of market caps in computing averages. As well as the stuff in between.

Frankly, I don't see a need for developed market bonds.
They yield less than U.S. bonds and corresponding funds usually have higher expense ratios.
What's the point?
Investors who are not seeking bonds for "ballast" and are comfortable with heightened volatility, may consider EM bonds for a part of their portfolios.
VEMBX has only been around since 03/10/2016 but it has performed well since inception*.
*This is not a recommendation. Perform your own due diligence.

As an early investor in the Templeton Funds (1970s) under Sir John it hurts a little to see the name in use by much larger (and publicly traded) Franklin. The original Templeton complex was a class act. I never thought as highly of Franklin which acquired Templeton in 1992.
International bonds are a tough act. So many different economies moving in different directions at any given time can make the smartest manager appear to be an idiot over shorter periods. And rates world wide are abysmal anyway. Think it’s tough earning a decent return in the U.S.? Ain’t any better across the globe unless you want to take on significant credit risk. Neither Russia nor Brazil strikes me as an especially “safe” (sleep well) spot to park my cash, although I’m sure either Putin or
Bolsonaro would be glad to have it.

The underperformance unfortunately goes beyond 2015-16. Prior to this year in which the fund is winning, Sequoia has underperformed its Morningstar Large-Cap Growth fund category peers for seven straight calendar years. Admittedly, one could argue it is miscategorized as large-growth. I wonder how it would hold up versus say the large-blend category. But 2021 so far has been a good year for this fund.

Sven - While officers in companies with publicly traded stock can hold shares of their stocks, their trading in that stock is restricted, and they need to (in theory at least) restrict their trading to periods in which material public information has been disclosed.
If they don't, and it can be shown that they traded on "insider" information, the SEC can force them to "give back" their trading gains, and can also impose penalties, etc.
Wiki link, with references, below. Check out 'Notes' at bottom of page for numerous references to various incidents.
Previously, Fed restrictions on Fed President stock trading had focused upon their trading in the stocks of regulated institutions, i.e., big banks, under the now quaint notion that bank stocks were the primary asset class influenced by the Fed's (regulatory) activities.
The Fed's COVID asset purchases - and Kaplan and Rosengren's trading activity - demonstrate the folly of the original trading restrictions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading
FWIW, when Alan Greenspan was Fed Chairman (and already wealthy), his personal investments were primarily short term treasury bills, to avoid any apparent conflict of interest. Link to 1998 WSJ article below.
Greenspan Says His Investments Are in Short-Term Treasury Bills
By Jacob M. Schlesinger WSJ | Aug. 18, 1998
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB903395355927059500

Yes, sometimes managers make comments outside SEC disclosures about their direct economic participation. I was asking folks to share if they are aware of such information.
I read this AM the M* analyst report for this fund. M* gives a Neutral rating, only one level above Negative, but gushes over with "[Managers] invest heavily in the strategy alongside fundholders." Who knows what the "heavily" means but hopefully not just the over $1M disclosed in the SAI (SEC filing).
Evidently, the current four managers have been with this fund for at least 10 years, which includes 2015-16.
The above is just an FYI.

The SEC requires disclosure of portfolio managers' ownership in the following ranges: none, $1–$10,000, $10,001–$50,000, $50,001–$100,000, $100,001–$500,000, $500,001–$1 million, and over $1 million.
Unless managers with more than $1 million invested in funds publicly reveal a specific amount or threshold, it may be difficult to ascertain this information.

That makes sense, David.
Since there seems to be keen interest in this fund on this board, do we know what is the max any current manager has invested in the fund? M* says more than a million dollars, which does not impress me as I think that would be less than 1 yr of compensation for each of the managers. M* reports from SAI. I would like to see 3-5 yrs of annual compensation before putting any positive weight on managers’ economic participation. I get that having too much of managers’ wealth could be a detriment too but 3-5 years of annual comp is not too much, given a lot investors put 5-10% of their wealth in a fund.
P.S.: I have never invested in this fund but am open to investing in it, not withstanding its misadventures in 2015-16.

These vary greatly in quality week-to-week. This one’s pretty decent. Rick Rieder of Blackrock, makes a point I’ve been mulling for some time: The issues that might tank the economy this time around are unique in that they relate to “not enough supply” rather than “not enough demand.” Demand from consumers is high, but labor shortages, materials shortages, supply chain issues, etc are restraining the economy.
(If Bloomberg had 3 or 4 other contributors as good as Rieder, the show might be worthy of its 1970s-90s namesake.)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-09-11/wall-street-week-full-show-09-10-2021-video

msf -
The question was asked and answered about Vanguard's and S&P's disclosures in the context of a switch in index providers for its VDADX/VIG vehicles.
Your posts - bringing Fidelity, iShares, and Franklin into the mix, and bringing up, as you say, "average market caps" or mean market caps, rather than the median (which was under discussion) seem to me to be the financial equivalent of "what-aboutism".
WIKI
Wiki link here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "what about…?") is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy, which attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving the argument.
MERRIAM-WEBSTER
M-W link here: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/whataboutism-origin-meaning
Whataboutism ... is not merely the changing of a subject ("What about the economy?") to deflect away from an earlier subject as a political strategy; it’s essentially a reversal of accusation, arguing that an opponent is guilty of an offense just as egregious or worse than what the original party was accused of doing, however unconnected the offenses may be.
For the life of me, I can't understand why you are responding so vociferously to my original statements or conclusions.
1. There is a standard, well accepted definition of median.
2. Standard (no pun) & Poor's uses this definition in their description of their indices, including the new one that will be adopted by VDADX/VIG.
3. Vanguard does not use this definition.
4. Vanguard uses its own definition of median that is not clearly labelled (as noted by BaluBalu, it should be labelled "Weighted Median"), and Vanguard's (mal)practice can confuse Vanguard investors (such as BaluBalu).
IMHO, if you want to have a discussion about average (rather than median) market cap conventions used by various other market participants - go for it. Perhaps you could start a new thread for that topic.
PS: While I don't want to turn this thread into a discussion of Vanguard's poor website design (good Lord, we have enough of those!) consider the following.
Below is the link to the search results I obtained for 'median', when using the Vanguard website search box. None of them refer to the 'retirement plan' definition that you provided.
(Wonder what the definition for median is when you are not in a retirement plan?)
https://investor.vanguard.com/search/?origin=fasHome&legalStuff=otherStuff&query=median#query=median|filter=dataIDall

Yahoo reports FXAIX's median market cap as $186.1B vs. the $32.1B figure reported by S&P for the underlying S&P 500 index. Given Yahoo's "non-standard" use of median (which it doesn't define), it makes you wonder what other terms Yahoo is fooling around with.
S&P uses what you call the "standard" definition of mean. But it seems to be the only one calculating the S&P 500 average market cap this way. While it reports an average of $79.9B, the S&P 500 index funds reporting give their average market cap as over $500B.
It makes one wonder what other terms the whole fund industry (not just Vanguard) is fooling around with. Or in the alternative, whether S&P is the one out of step in how it calculates a portfolio's average market cap. Because it seems that the standard way of calculating a portfolio's aggregate statistics is to weight its holdings.
A few sample figures for S&P 500 index fund average market caps:
Fidelity FXAIX - $539.7B (June)
Vanguard VFIAX - $543.1B (June)
Franklin SBSPX - $545.9B (July)
iShares WFSPX $608.4B (August)
Schwab goes these funds one better, by giving two very different figures:
$518.7B in its April 30, 2021 semi annual report, where it labels this a weighted average, and
$204.8B on its fund's webpage (July 31, 2021).
Since Schwab doesn't say that this figure is weighted, surely that must mean that this average is unweighted? No, it's weighted also, but it's calculated using a "non-standard" formula.
Is Vanguard really the one that is playing fast and loose with figures?

My rough formula for capacity starts with the smallest firm that they would like to include in the portfolio. Currently, that's Rolls Royce. You don't want to own more than 5% of the float or you become a controlling owner, which complicates the manager's life. So 5% of Rolls is $600 million in stock. If you want a concentrated portfolio (and they do), I multiple the maximum size of their smallest firm's holding by the target number of companies in the portfolio. $600M x 30 = $18B.
That's rough because (1) there can be other constraints on the managers in terms of their internal capacity, (2) part of the strategy capacity can be committed to SMAs or other vehicles, and (3) the managers could choose to underweight their smaller companies. I tend not to make the latter assumption with concentrated go-anywhere portfolios because it's equally likely that they would want to overweight the smallest firm.
When we publish a fund's strategy capacity, it's almost always based on a conversation with the adviser who sometimes (Grandeur Peak) has it down to the dollar and other times, they just laugh and exclaim "as if!"
If you're smallest firm is $100B and you're targeting 50 names, this particular match does give you effectively unlimited strategy capacity: $250 billion or so.
For what that's worth,
David

Here’s a related article. More complete than what Forsyth’s article contains (Forsyth was trying to cover too many bases in one piece.)
https://www.dallasnews.com/business/banking/2021/09/09/dallas-fed-ceo-robert-kaplan-traded-millions-in-stocks-like-apple-tesla-in-2020/
Excerpted
“Dallas Fed president Robert Kaplan to sell off his holdings in stocks like Apple, Tesla and Amazon”
“The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas pledged Thursday to sell his holdings in individual stocks such as Apple, Tesla and Amazon by Sept. 30 after his trades totaling millions of dollars in 2020 became public this week. Kaplan and Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren released near-identical statements about their plans to divest their stock portfolios and reinvest in either diversified indexed funds or keep the proceeds as cash. In Kaplan’s case, his trades last year came while he was voting on critical monetary policy for the U.S. during the pandemic.”
“Kaplan, 64, was a voting member of the 12-member policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee last year. The committee rotates the policy-deciding votes among regional bank heads each year. This year, he’s not a voting member. That means he attends the eight yearly FOMC meetings and contributes to discussions but can’t vote. Rosengreen, a voting member this year, listed stakes in four separate real estate investment trusts and disclosed multiple purchases and sales in those and other securities last year. There is precedent for Kaplan and other Fed Presidents to trade stocks while serving on the committee.”
*** This story’s a bit hard to access. But clearing cookies or trying a different browser should work.

(we know how to define median) ... (Vanguard probably doesn't know how to define median.)
Vanguard knows how to define median and gives its definition right on its website:

median market capitalization

---

An indicator of the size of companies in which a fund invests; the midpoint of market capitalization (market price x shares outstanding) of a fund’s stocks, weighted by the proportion of the fund’s assets invested in each stock. Stocks representing half of the fund’s assets have market capitalizations above the median, and the rest are below it.

https://retirementplans.vanguard.com/VGApp/pe/Glossary?Term=medianmarketcapitalization
Vanguard weights a fund's holdings when calculating its median market cap, just as Vanguard weights a fund's holdings when calculating its mean.
Do we really all know how to define these terms? How about average market cap? For the S&P 500, Fidelity FXAIX reports $539.7B (June 30), M* FXAIX reports $204.8B (July 31), and S&P reports $79.9B (Aug 31). They can't all be right, or can they?
S&P is reporting an unweighted arithmetic mean, Fidelity is reporting a weighted arithmetic mean, and M* is reporting a weighted geometric mean.
S&P 500 fact sheet: navigate to sheet from this page.
Fidelity FXAIX quarterly fund review.
M* portfolio page for FXAIX.
M* definition of average market cap as weighted geometric mean
Getting back to fund median market cap. The Fidelity quarterly report for FXAIX gives both the weighted and unweighted medians: $187.6B and $30.2B respectively. S&P gives "the" median as $32.1B (it's two months more recent than Fidelity's figure). That's a spread not much different from the Vanguard discrepancy.
It's best to be careful when comparing apples and oranges before declaring one of them wrong.