You make a good point that I tried to address but didn't do so very eloquently. My "never happened" was to a sustained period (12, 15+ years) of returns where your contributions weren't worth much more than they were when you put them in. That would destroy an entire generation's retirement. Your point about losing 5-8 years in your goal was to retire in 2008 is well taken. Folks in that position, assuming they had massive market exposure (which like you said is a mistake and extremely risky), had to either take a standard-of-living cut in retirement, continue working, or draw down principle and risk running out of money early.