Recent M* article on "2 Ways to Upgrade Your 401(k) Without Leaving Your Job"

employees may not have to wait until they retire or leave the firm to be able to make improvements to their 401(k)s. If their plans offer what's called an "in-service distribution," they can move a portion of their money from the company retirement plan to an IRA even as they remain with the same employer. Additionally, some company retirement plans offer an "in-plan conversion," which gives employees the chance to convert traditional 401(k) assets to Roth 401(k) assets within the confines of the same plan.

https://morningstar.com/articles/861732/2-ways-to-upgrade-your-401k-without-leaving-your-j.html

Forget about SIMPLE and SARSEP - those are employer-sponsored IRAs.
Pretax or post-tax, you made it clear that the money you have is in traditional IRAs, not Roths. You keep track of that with 8606 forms.
Rollover IRAs are something of a hack. They're just traditional IRAs containing money that originally came from an employer plan. They are there to help trace where the money came from.
This used to be a big deal because your new employer's 401K plan might only accept money that originally came from another 401k plan, not a "regular" IRA. (If you were born before 1937 there were also tax benefits.) It's less important now.
Currently, the main reason to "tag" money as coming from an employer plan is that in bankruptcy court, you get unlimited protection for 401k money and money that originally came from 401(k)s. Keeping this money segregated, with or without tag, "will facilitate the ease of tracking and proving which IRA assets are attributable to protected rollover contributions and growth thereon."
Kitces, Credit Protection for Retirement Accounts.
Aside from helping you know which money came from 401k's if you ever go through bankruptcy, the "Rollover" moniker doesn't serve much useful purpose any more. It's just a "traditional" IRA.
Here's an Ed Slott forum post that says all of this more clearly and concisely:
https://www.irahelp.com/forum-post/18141-traditional-ira-vs-rollover-ira

I raised this topic before. It may have been quite some time ago. Perhaps as long ago as the FundAlarm days.
As many of you probably do, I get periodic invites in the mailbox from financial planners. The invite stipulates that the financial planner is having an informational lunch or dinner, and I am invited, if I RSVP in time. No obligations are required. My belief is that, as a Do-It-Yourself'er (DIY) investor, I don't have a need for a financial planner. Or perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps I should attend and will find the services to be of value. And if I do go, is it ethical in this circumstance to attend more than one? How many lunches are reasonable?
If my memory serves me correctly, it was the discussion board's posters, who are financial planners, that thought it was unethical of me to attend, unless I am open to giving serious weight to consider the services of such planners. To their credit, I never did respond back with an RSVP to attend. Their basic objection was that the cost of the lunch comes out of the pocket of the financial planner, and not from the firm that they are employed by.
Usually the invitation is on expensive stationary and is delivered by USPS. Today I received the following email from my credit union.

Register Today! Retirement Planning Lunch & Learn
Join us on [date deleted] for this FREE Retirement Planning Lunch & Learn at the [location deleted]! [Name deleted], Financial Advisor and Registered Principal at [firm name deleted], will discuss critical factors in planning your retirement years, including:
What are my biggest retirement risks?
Will I ever be able to retire?
Will my money last through retirement?
Is it okay to carry some debt into retirement?
Where can I get help?
This seminar is free of charge and lunch will be provided. Seating is limited and advanced reservations are REQUIRED so reserve your place today!

So am I a bad person if I RSVP, because I'm curious. I'll disclose to you that I might be as curious about the restaurant as I am about the informational topic. If okay, how many of these can I attend before I cross a red line in the sand that makes me the moral equivalent of a dictator in the Middle East, not to be named?

Infinite. Attend as many as you want, no problem. They're effectively trying to buy your business. That, to me, is more unethical than attending with little intention of picking up their services.

@Bee: Interesting concept. My spouse is a retired teacher in MI, but her pension payout has nothing to do with the state pension fund's performance. I suspect that in CT, the same is true. I realize you are not comparing income from your pension to income (or returns) from your personal portfolio, but I thought it useful to state. In fact, pensions are threatened because elected officials can and do modify the payouts, sometimes claiming under performance of the fund. OTOH, my TIAA RMDs do depend on the performance of my retirement portfolios because my yearly distributions are based on an age-determined percentage applied on December 31.

I began reading a white paper from Schwab this weekend and this quote caught my eye:

In 1986, Gary Brinson, Randolph Hood and Gilbert Beebower studied the allocations of 91 pension funds and concluded that asset allocation decisions, on average, explained more than 90% of pension fund risk, as measured by the volatility of returns over time

Source:Schwab Intelligent Portfolios™ Asset Allocation White Paper
https://intelligent.schwab.com/public/intelligent/insights/whitepapers/asset-allocation.html
Also, I believe @MikeM invests a portion of his portfolio with SIP™ (mentioned in this thread):
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/97608/#Comment_97608
Obviously a dated quote (1986), but probably still true today.
Question: Where does one turn to for Pension fund information?
I review my pension fund's performance periodically. It is state run and has a easy to access website (linked below).
My plan going forward is to benchmark my personal non- professional portfolio against my pension fund's results. There is usually a delay of a month or two for their results to post on the state's website, but for my purposes (quarterly/yearly reviews) this delay shouldn't be a big problem.
As of Feb 28, 2018:

My YTD Performance (through 4/27/2018):

Further, I like to also compare the pension fund's allocation to mine (I use M* Portfolio Manager). The pension fund's allocations are as follows:
Notice that they have a Policy Wt and and upper and lower Range for that policy weighting.

Via M* Portfolio manager (free service through T Rowe Price) my top 10 Holdings (70% of assets):

Going forward, as I become more risk averse (moving into retirement), I plan to lean on this professionally run pension information as a benchmark to my personal investing. I am no where near as diversified as the pension fund, so I will continue researching good investment choices for my portfolio.
Pension fund is linked here:
ott.ct.gov/pensionfunds_overview.html
Fund Performance Page:
ott.ct.gov/pensiondocs/fundperf/FundPerformance02282018.pdf

I haven't played with ORP, so I can't comment on it.
Still looking at the "Simple" Formulas page (for complex withdrawal strategies). "Simple" is definitely in the eye of the beholder. In the sense of easily expressible and computable, the formulas are easy; in the sense of comprehensible, not so much.
It turns out that the Withdrawal Efficiency Ratio incorporates risk tolerance by assuming a particular constant relative risk aversion. (Didn't mean anything to me.)
In learning about that, I found what to me is a great textbook chapter (about 19 pages if printed) on risk aversion. I'd put it at a college sophomore level - about the same as what you'd need for intro Economics - a basic understanding of derivatives (differential calculus) and a bit of common sense.
http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/risk/riskaversion.htm
Constant relative risk aversion means that the percentage of money you're willing to risk is the same (constant) regardless of how much money you have. A millionaire might risk $100K (10%), but if he becomes a decamillionaire, he'll be just as comfortable risking $1M (10%).
As I wrote above, I'd frame the question of investing for retirement in terms of constraints - specifically that I must not run out of money before I die.
In any case, if one is really patient and really interested in risk aversion, that NYU Stern Business School page is worth skimming. Even if one skips the math, it's interesting to read about why and when the models break down. For example:

Nonlinear preferences: If an individual prefers A to B, B to C, and then C to A, he or she is violating one of the key axioms of standard preference theory (transitivity). In the real world, there is evidence that this type of behavior is not uncommon.

This sort of thinking makes optimizing retirement plans virtually impossible. Welcome to the real world.

So this is way Social is actually Anti-Social. Opinion is News. Facts are Twisted. Everything is true. Nothing is true. Fake News.
Examples...
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/early-retirement-may-be-the-kiss-of-death-study-finds_us_57221aa3e4b01a5ebde49eff
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18952037
https://hbr.org/2016/10/youre-likely-to-live-longer-if-you-retire-after-65
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-23/americans-are-retiring-later-dying-sooner-and-sicker-in-between
If I recall correctly, the Dr. Wu ANALysis in Hardvard Business Review was twisted in another article to reach conclusion SS and M are overfunded. However, I can't find that article right now.

some of these are pretty easy and have been bruited for years
https://www.kiplinger.com/article/retirement/T051-C000-S002-ways-to-fix-social-security.html
https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/planning-to-retire/2014/11/14/5-potential-social-security-fixes

Yes, the projections and probabilities and especially the tax thing are all nice, albeit the tax advice sometimes dismays.

Especially when it recommends spending down your Roth account early in retirement...seems counter intuitive.
How ORP works :
https://i-orp.com/help/assume.html

@davidrmoran, nice addition. Not only are safe withdrawal rates important, but (the ORP calculator) optimally selects which savings to spend first to maximize tax efficiencies.
From the ORP website:

The Optimal Retirement Income Planner (ORP) uses the facts of your individual situation to compute a tax-efficient savings withdrawal schedule that maximizes your retirement disposable income. ORP uses the same Linear Programming technology that Operations Research practitioners have, for more than 50 years, been using to manage oil refineries, blend chicken feed, schedule air line crews, schedule corn harvesting, timber harvesting, and now, retirement planning.

ORP Calculator:
https://i-orp.com/fees/index.html

FYI: The Labor Department is examining whether Wells Fargo has been pushing participants in low-cost corporate 401(k) plans to roll their holdings into more expensive individual retirement accounts at the bank.
Regards,
Ted
Need WSJ Subscription:
http://www.cetusnews.com/business/Wells-Fargo’s-401(k)-Practices-Probed-by-Labor-Department-.rJMCHOypM.html

@bee, thanks. The first one seems to be the one that best follows the idea of seeing how different portfolio strategies compare.
With the managed futures link, beware of investment costs. Nearly all papers/simulations are done without considering costs. These days, that's not unreasonable, with index funds costing a handful of basis points. Managed futures are different. The paper cited within that column specifically refers to M*'s managed future funds as a way of implementing. M* puts the average cost of these funds around 2%. If you take 10% of that (the proposal was to allocate 10% of the portfolio to managed futures), you've reduced your returns by 0.2%. Since the simulated advantage of the portfolio (over a 50/50 stock/bond portfolio) was 0.5%, this advantage is roughly cut in half after considering costs. Still worth a look.
I'm still perusing the last couple. (You should correct the last link, it includes an extra http : // at the end). I like the overview in that paper. It mentions some papers that describe a method for adjusting next year's withdrawal based on the probability of success from that point forward.
I'm going to have to spend some time digesting its Withdrawal Efficiency Ratio (WER). The paper asserts that this incorporates both maximizing income and minimizing the odds of running out of money. The term for this is an "objective function". It mathematically encapsulates what is to be optimized. That reduces the problem to a search exercise - find the portfolio strategy that maximizes WER.
It should be apparent that maximizing income and minimizing the odds of running out are in conflict. You don't invest 100% in stocks, because there's a good chance that a bear market could come along and wipe you out in retirement. But if it doesn't, that's how you maximize your income - higher income with greater odds of failure. I'm not sure yet to how WER balances these objectives. My own objective function would be one that maximizes income subject to the constraint that the chance of failure is 0.

Another possible article using Wellesley and Wellington Funds in retirement:
will-4-percent-withdrawal-rate-last-retirement

@msf, even a well diversified allocation fund (in this case a retirement fund) IMHO still poses risks. My thinking (not @MikeM) is to understand the risks that haven't been properly diversified away or hedged very well by the fund's construction.
For example, many retirement date funds do a poor job of diversifying away equity draw down risk during severe market pull backs. Many other allocation funds are guilty of this as well, including retirement funds. To mitigate this risk, additional non-correlated assets...commodities (including gold), RE, and specific bonds...act as an equity hedge during these serve draw down periods (flight to safety).
Also, sequence of return risk (withdrawing from a single retirement fund) might be another reason to own a "near cash" / "low volatility" fund to serve as "a place to withdraw from", especially when the equity market under performs for extended periods of time.
Further thoughts:
PRPFX was the poster child as an "all weather fund" for a very long time until (commodities & PM) tanked. I'm wondering if it might not be a bad entry point into PRPFX if one believes commodities have bottomed.
Anyway, using Portfolio Visualizer, I combined BTTRX, PRPFX and TRRCX (portfolio three) as an example of adding 2 funds to help smooth out TRRCX. I have to admit that over the long term TRRCX rebounded nicely all by itself (portfolio 2).
Chart:

@MikeM,

I think holding a target date fund, which holds the equity/bond mix that suites you, as your core and largest holding and then supplementing it with a few other funds is a great strategy.

For the vast majority of investors: A retirement date fund (until age 65)...done.
At 65, these retirement income funds (Fidelity calls theirs "Simplicity RMD") seem like a viable choice.
Additional considerations:
I would consider a Long Term US Treasury investment and a "Near Cash" investment which would serve to:
1) LT Treausuries do a good job of Hedging against periodic downside equity market (Equity risk...flight to safety)
2) "Near Cash" + LT Treasuries helps mitigate sequence of return risk (selling equities in a down market).
3) "Near Cash" helps manage emergencies (unplanned) or one time expenses (house down payment, weddings, medical expenses, etc.) which can be planned or unplanned.

Traditional target date funds are designed to be held as one's only investment. The idea is that you're leaving the asset allocation to someone else. If you're throwing other stuff into the mix, then you're messing with that allocation. If that's what you want to do, then why use a target date fund?

Because these retirement date funds are the perfect core 1-fund holding. More so than a balanced fund. More so than all those allocation funds that are talked about here, in my opinion. I think holding a target date fund, which holds the equity/bond mix that suites you, as your core and largest holding and then supplementing it with a few other funds is a great strategy.

Why should or does ones RMD withdrawal rate increase as they get older?

@Mark, my understanding is that RMD rates increase as a retiree ages because the government needs to capture the "tax" from your "tax deferred" investments.
Retirees with large tax deferred balances may see their taxable income (including RMDs) potentially shift them into higher tax brackets as a result of RMDs. This may, in turn, cause up to 85% of SSI to become taxable...even an increase to Medicare premiums may be impacted by higher taxable income.
You don't have to spend the distribution, but you do have to pay the taxes on the distribution.
At 70.5 you are required to withdraw 3.65% of your total tax deferred balance. At age 105 the withdrawal rate is 22.22%.
RMD Chart:

Also,
I'm pretty sure this will be a tax bonanza for the government as baby boomers pay taxes on their RMDs and help fund many underfunded government obligations.
American's (age 70+) held over $500B in tax deferred accounts or about 22% of all tax deferred balances ($2.46 T) as of 2013 so imagine this even higher today.
Article:Here's How Much the Average American Has in an IRA, Sorted by Age:
https://fool.com/retirement/2016/06/27/heres-how-much-the-average-american-has-in-an-ira.aspx

One of the best articles I have read. Thanks @Ted. One I will actually be printing out. So many bullet points that are applicable to my situation. I have some work to do still in the spending department but finally have been begun to loosen the purse strings. Recently purchased two low mileage Xterras to go along with my older one. They quit making them in 2015. I hope to be driving them until the day I pass. I love Xterras!
One point mentioned in the article and something I have harped on before is we that we all tend to overestimate our longevity. It’s a natural tendency so I can understand. When younger we all had friends who seemed to go by the motto to live each day as if it is your last. Strangely enough, at least among my friends, those seemed to be the ones who ( A) never made it to old age due to poor health habits or (B) now live hand to mouth in retirement from overspending in their youth. . My point is, it’s not so much when we are young that we should live as if each day is our last, but more so when we are old - and especially those of us who have been blessed in old age with money and good health. Health in old age can change in the blink of an eye so you better live each day to the fullest enjoying whatever your passions may be.

FYI: The same mind-set and habits that work so well when people are building their nest egg can damage their quality of life—and their investments—in retirement.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.cetusnews.com/news/The-Mental-Mistakes-We-Make-With-Retirement-Spending.S1nOzov2f.html

@Flack, a few good reads on "How to Manage Sequence Risk":
4-approaches-managing-sequence-returns-risk-retirement/
And,
Part 1:
theretirementcafe.com/2013/09/clarifying-sequence-of-returns-risk.html
Part 2:
theretirementcafe.com/2013/09/clarifying-sequence-of-returns-risk_20.html