Was Bridgeway overrated? It may be the best of the bunch (quants), so perhaps the question might be rephrased as "are quant funds overrated?"

I think they are, generally speaking. IMHO the "less quant" a quant fund can be, the better it probably will do. IE, Vanguard's VMVFX is what I call quant-lite in terms of its construction, mixed w/a touch of active management/currency hedging....I own it, and like its construction, allocation, and investment process. Bridgeway's equal-wt BRLIX is all quant in its construction, but it's a simple system that is described and easily replicated if you didn't want to pay the .15 ER to the company. (I think BRLIX is one of their better-performing funds over time but haven't compared them recently.) If I need to park money into something that's a (thankfully) non-index LC fund, that's my go-to place.
Compare that to, say Arnott's PAUIX which has (last check) like 20 different slices represented by PIMCO funds -- with a ton of overlap if memory serves -- and percentages that are, imho, totally useless in terms of generating meaningful investment performance or diversity (ie, ABCDE position is 2%, etc.). Heck, some of these robo-advisors do that too ... frankly I think anything less than 10% isn't really much of a 'diversifier' anyway.