Armchair critic: that's all fine, but what return will I get?

I was once in a final salary pension scheme and it seemed to pass the ‘Ronseal Test’ – a pension that kept pace with my earnings and grew each year I worked for the company. I don’t recall any conversation about process or investment strategy – all the emphasis was on outcomes. Flip over to what is optimistically called the “real world” of retail financial services and, for pensions and investments, the emphasis is firmly on process. I’m not sure that meets the needs of consumers. If I talk to my adviser about investments I want to understand the end game. I’m sort of interested, in a...