> Mostly a case of perfectly intelligent people throwing wads of money into the market on autopilot because that's all the 401k lets you do. Lambs to the slaughter!

That's called "buy and hold" investing (putting additional dollars you have into the market, as your paychecks come in).

Historically, it's been a great way to grow wealth. You invest in index funds, and you get basically the market return less some fees.

> expense ratio over 1.5%

This is worse-case scenario. Employers are coming around to see these fees as astronomical. Plus, well-funded 401(k)'s can get institutional rates, due to their portfolio size. We're talking expense ratio's of 0.03, 0.02, almost non-existent.