I've been about 50-50 regional active funds and indices for most of the last decade. For the last few years, the active funds have been principally Baillie Gifford Japanese Smaller and Baillie Gifford American. I generally get into them alongside dull index funds in the same region; I'm into HSBC American Index C and Fidelity Index Japan, for example.

Generally, when I feel a region is looking good, I get into a mix of index and broad actively managed (with a liking for smaller companies). Reasoning... not much beyond thus far it seems to have worked out well. Those active funds have certainly outstripped the indicies, but with such a small sample size, I'm not so much datum as noise.

I wonder if there's a middle-place to be found between plain dull index, and mad-as-a-hatter active managed.