Just looking at the mechanics, and not the particular funds ...
It looks like with a little flexibility, you could get down to two institutions - Fidelity and Vanguard - pretty easily. TRP is now NTF at Fidelity (and at Vanguard, though I'd favor Fidelity for brokerage/third party funds). The only reason I might have for continuing to invest directly with TRP is free M* premium access.
For the HSA, if you're willing to invest in anything other than BRUFX, Fidelity now offers HSA accounts that are as free as its regular/IRA brokerage accounts. As a side note, you don't have to withdraw money from an HSA as expenses are incurred. You can pay out of pocket and reimburse yourself anytime in the future out of the HSA so long as you hold onto your bills and receipts. So, like other "Roths", you can keep the HSA invested in more volatile funds and draw on the HSA only when it is doing well.
Personally, I tend to avoid sector funds. In part because I don't claim any macro expertise. In part because, as you wrote, I pay my fund managers to make those kinds of decisions. To each his own. I agree with targeting 3 years or so of "survival funds". Even if the other funds don't fully recover in three years, they should come back enough that drawing on them after that time shouldn't be too painful.
A curiosity question, no need to respond w/personal data: my understanding of WEP is that "By law, it cannot eliminate your benefit entirely." (AARP page) So I'm wondering how you're getting hit so hard by it.

As part of my end of the year portfolio review I try to simplify my holdings without compromising performance. I am 60 years old and have a pension, but no Social Security (SS's WEP provision eliminated SS for me). I see the next 20 years as a time to spend a little bit of what I have saved knowing full well that, if I am lucky enough to live into my eighties, spending priorities will begin to shift away from "foot loose and fancy free" to "foot wear that's loose and free".
Simplification comes in two forms. One, I am attempting to simplify what I hold (the number of funds) and two, where I hold these funds (the number of institutions where I hold the funds). I manage all of my investments independent of advisors. I do attempt to seek out mutual funds that are managed. So, in a sense, I do pay for investment management advice as a function of the Expense Ratio (ER) of the funds i own that have fund managers or management teams.
Over the next 20 years my withdrawal from these investments need to fund:
- Yearly Income gaps - the yearly shortfall when I subtract my projected yearly expenses from my retirement income.
- One time Expenses - For gift costs (weddings, tuition, holidays), travel costs, medical procedures costs (not covered by insurances), large one time item costs (a car, boat, real estate)
- Roth Conversions up to the 12% tax bracket limit (25% of my retirement accounts are in deferred taxable IRA, 75% in Roth/HSA).
- Help fund retirement needs beyond 80 such as income gaps as a result of inflation, out of pocket health care costs, funeral expenses, providing for surviving spouse, and gifting to beneficiaries (Spouse, Kids, Charities)...oh yeah, and loose fitting shoes.
Here are my present holding by percentages of total:
71% Moderate to Aggressive positions (for long term growth and periodic withdrawals)
PRWCX - 22% (half Roth, half SD IRA)
PRGSX - 10.5% (Roth)
PRMTX - 7.5% (Roth)
PRHSX - 4% (SD IRA)
VMVFX - 6% (Roth)
VHCOX / POAGX-11% (Roth)
VHT - 2% (Roth)
FSMEX - 4% (Roth)
FSRPX - 4% (Roth)
6% Balance position (to cover Long term HC costs)
BRUFX - (HSA)
23% Conservative positions (to cover sequence of return withdrawals, to provide cash for buying opportunities, lower portfolio volatility)
FRIFX, VWINX, PTIAX, VFISX, PRWBX, SPRXX - (mostly Roth)
I am presently at 5 institutions which I will reduce to 4 by Spring 2020 and 3 by summer 2020
Recently, I back tested a portfolio consisting of PRWCX (34%), PRMTX (33%) and PRHSX (33%) which I consider moderately aggressive.
Its past 20 year performance had a MAXXDD recovery period of 3 years. I consider this a reasonable time frame to cover a sequence of return risk withdrawal.
Having at least 3 years of retirement income money earmarked for these future time frames (market pull backs and recoveries) seems reasonable to me. A combination of FRIFX / VWINX / PTIAX / ST Bonds are my choices for this part of my portfolio.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

@MikeM - I'm having trouble following your reasoning. First off, many of the REIT investors I know of are not consumed by TR nor do they view it as the 'be all to end all'. It's always nice if they get it but they're more interested in the income stream REIT's provide. Buying REIT's when they've been beaten up can be rewarding (however now is not that time). Bonds and bond funds are also capable of gyrations.
Second, I don't understand this statement you made at all "... but buying them for their income distribution inside a tax deferred account doesn't have much meaning." The REIT's I own are all stuffed in a Roth IRA precisely to avoid income taxes on the distributions generated. I can also sell them free of capital gains taxes when prudent. What am I missing? According to M* buying REIT's in tax deferred accounts is the best place for them.
I meant to add this section from Bees' earlier linked capital gains distribution article:
"Consider Asset Location
Ultimately, an investor's best weapon against unwanted taxable income or capital gains distributions is to pay attention to which assets you hold in tax-deferred accounts (such as 401(k)s and IRAs) versus taxable accounts (such as brokerage accounts). Certain types of investments tend to be less tax-efficient because they are more likely to pay out taxable income or gains than others. These include high-turnover actively managed funds, some types of bond funds including high-yield corporate-bond funds, and REIT funds. Such holdings are a better fit inside of a tax-advantaged account such as a 401(k), IRA, HSA, 529, and the like. By contrast, municipal-bond funds as well as many index funds and ETFs can be good choices for taxable accounts."

FYI: For high-income investors who are maxing out other tax-sheltered accounts, the high-deductible healthcare plan/HSA combo is close to a no-brainer.
Regards,
Ted
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/777025/its-open-enrollment-season-have-you-taken-a-good-look-at-an-hsa

My humble proposal –
Each citizen age 18 or over receives a $1,000 credit per month to be applied to health insurance of choice, whether private or public. Any minors must be covered before moving to the next option. (Yeah, I would favor DNA testing to identify deadbeat fathers.)
If the citizen and/or spouse has employer health coverage and the full amount is not needed for primary health coverage, the balance could be applied to dental coverage, vision coverage, or an HSA.
Or, it could be applied to an iron-clad retirement program, public or private. By “iron-clad,” I mean no borrowing, or sketchy exemptions like first home purchase. Retirement, and retirement only. Buy Social Security credits, if you want.

BRUFX, a fund I use for my HSA, seems to be over weighting the same three sectors.
https://screencast.com/t/yEgoybwZK6S

Can anyone explain why they use managed mutual funds that cost you 1-2% to own ...
What do others think? What are the reasons to use managed funds over free ETFs?

You're starting with a number of questionable assumptions:
- that ETFs are all passively managed index funds
- that my managed funds cost over 1%
- that mutual funds (as compared with ETFs) are actively managed, or even that they cost more than ETFs
I've said before that all else (or at least ERs and transaction costs) being equal, I'll take the mutual fund format over the ETF format because I don't risk tracking error (i.e. the part of tracking error from market price not matching NAV) and I'm not charged SEC Section 31 fees.
So I'll rewrite your question as: What are the reasons to use managed funds over index funds?
Almost none of the funds I own cost over 1%. I own a number of actively managed Vanguard funds that cost around ⅓% or less. My two largest Vanguard holdings (which I've had for several years if not decades) continue to outperform; my newest (held for a couple of years) is still subject to reconsideration.
What would you suggest for small cap int'l? That's where I've had the most difficulty finding good, inexpensive funds. There's always VFSAX if one wants an index fund (or its ETF share class VSS if one insists), but one ought to be able to do better in this category. VINEX doesn't exactly excite, and ACINX has not done well for years. There are DFA funds (available through VAs, HSAs, etc.), but they're hard to get.
If one is willing to go up a bit in price, the stalwart PRIDX continues to roll along. Do you feel that index funds will do better than this?
What index fund do you feel would do a better job than RPHYX as a cash alternative? (Despite the high cost of RPHYX.)
Lots of reasons to hold managed funds - low cost ones can do well, some categories are not amenable to indexing, some funds are unique.
Still, I agree that it's getting harder to beat index funds, and over the next decade or two I'll likely shift more investments into index funds.

Even older funds may not gather many assets if they don't market themselves. See BRUFX - 35 years old, $500M, not available through any brokerage. (But it does offer an HSA - talk about a stealth product!)

Is there anything in this short article that is correct?

Put simply, the R-class of mutual funds are available only through employment-based retirement accounts ... In other words, investors access R-class mutual funds through their employers or work arrangement. ,,, To qualify for Class R shares, you must have access to a 401(k), 457 or employer-sponsored 403(b) plan.

American Funds R-5 shares are available through individual (not employer sponsored) HSAs, e.g. The HSA Authority.
https://www.oldnational.com/thehsaauthority/individuals-employees/investment-services

mutual funds that charge loads are not allowed in employer-sponsored retirement plans

"Apart from fees charged for administration of the plan itself, there are three basic types of fees that may be charged in connection with investment options in a 401(k) plan. ...
Sales charges (also known as loads or commissions)."
From DOL (2013). Emphasis in original.

R-class shares were designed to allow securities firms to serve retirement planners without charging a load

Ironically, the fund cited in the piece, RGAAX, is the R-1 share class of an American Funds fund. AF R-1 shares are load shares. They charge 12b-1 fees of 1.00%. As a matter of law, any fund charging a 12b-1 fee in excess of 0.25% must be called a load fund. (The article also gets the ticker wrong; it gives a MMF ticker ending in XX.)

R shares still have fairly low expense ratios but tend to be costlier than index funds.

R shares can be index funds just as easily as they can be actively managed funds. Often, that makes them cheaper than sibling share classes of the same fund. For example, OGFAX (JP Morgan Equity Index R6) is the cheapest share class of this fund; at 0.04%, it costs just 1/5 as much as the institutional share class HLEIX.

Thanks to David for doing all the leg-work on researching these EM value funds. I find the performance comparisons among the several funds surprising in that Seafarer seems to be a laggard. This is surprising to me, a former shareholder, and maybe to MFO participants who have voiced quite steadfast support for Mr. Foster. Over the last 25 years, when I have been a market participant, I haven't made much money in EM and I certainly have not been compensated for the risks. Grandeur Peaks's latest letter to shareholders, a "mea culpa," says they had too much exposure to EMs. Granted, there's no place to hide these days; EMs seem to offer the least protection, but never fail to attract the soothsayers who prod the unwary to catch the next wave up. The TRP EM value fund does have a good, though short, record.

This says that Vanguard will be integrating its 401(k) processing with Health Equity's HSA. It doesn't sound like any new HSA product is being offered. Interestingly, it seems to characterize HSAs as retirement savings:

For Vanguard participants who elect to save in a HealthEquity HSA, Vanguard’s Retirement Readiness Tool technology will integrate their HSA information with their 401(k) balance and other assets to give them a comprehensive view of their current and future retirement savings.

Vanguard already offers some of its funds through Health Equity and through a couple of other HSAs. Here's Vanguard's retail page for those HSAs:
https://personal.vanguard.com/us/whatweoffer/overview/healthsavings
Health Equity overhauled its HSA about three years ago. It used to offer inexpensive access to a pretty good set of funds if I recall correctly, but switched to all Vanguard. Its HSA account costs 40 basis points/year. If you've got $10K in your HSA that costs more than several other HSAs, though if you want a fairly wide selection of Vanguard funds, this HSA can still work well for you.
It offers index funds through cheaper institutional clones rather than through Admiral shares of retail funds, but how much of a cost difference does that amount to?
HealthEquity retail HSA:
https://www.healthequity.com/doclib/hsa/hsa-invest.pdf

FYI: Vanguard Group will start offering health savings accounts to its defined-contribution-plan clients, the retirement-plan record keeper and asset manager announced Thursday, capitalizing on the increased popularity of HSAs.
Regards,
Ted
https://pressroom.vanguard.com/news/Press-Release-Vanguard-Partners-With-HealthEquity-11518.html

Defined benefits are part of your compensation in addition to the base salary, insurance coverage, vacation, sick leave, and retirement funding.
Defined pension plan, although rapidly disappearing, is your retirement pension once you are "vested", typically 3-5 years of employment. Defined contribution plan, or 401(K) in private sector, or 403(b) in education sector. 401(k) plan is funded by the employees on pretax dollars and therefore reduces the taxable income (say your base salary). If you contribute to the maximum dollar amount in 2018, this amounts to $18,000. If you are over the age of 50, you can contribute additional $6,000. Your employers can contribute up to 5-6% of your base salary to your 401(k). If you are in 25% tax bracket, your tax saving is $4,500 (0.25 X $18,000),
As bee pointed out, the HSA and FSA are also available. Since the medical insurance enrollment is upon us now, it is important to talk with your HR as soon as possible.

-HSA- Health Savings Account
-FSA- Flexible Savings Account
-Health insurance Premium deduction for self employed.
-Tax Credits of all stripes
https://irs.gov/credits-deductions-for-individuals
-Municipal Bonds

Here's M*'s latest story on HSAs: How to Escape a Lousy Health Savings Account It talks not only about a once a year rollover, but about more frequent periodic direct (custodian to custodian) transfers which may unfortunately be subject to fees.
And @bee 's blast from the past: Best HSA Provider for Investing HSA Money
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/36141/best-hsa-provider-for-investing-hsa-money
M* hasn't updated its report from 2017. It still omits Saturna and Lively, two inexpensive alternatives.

I invest directly with Bruce Funds (BRUFX) for my HSA. My only fees are the funds ER (0.71%) and a $15/yr account maintenance fee. Returns have average 6% since I started. Other HSA providers offer a host of investment choices. If your employer's HSA plan has limited investment choices or high fees you can complete a once a year rollover or a trustee to trustee transfer to another HSA providers (of your choosing).
how-to-rollover-an-hsa-on-your-own-and-avoid-trustee-transfer-fee
Here's a M* report:

Health savings accounts are a very under-researched corner of the market. Investors have few resources available to help them navigate the hundreds of plan providers that exist. Health savings accounts have recently grown in popularity, but the lack of resources has likely contributed to their under utilization as a savings vehicle despite their valuable tax benefits. To provide a comprehensive resource for investors and employers selecting a plan, we assessed 10 of the largest HSA plan providers in this report. We evaluated the plans through two separate lenses: using them as a spending vehicle to cover current medical costs, and using them as an investment vehicle to save for future medical expenses.

Link for full Report:
2017_Health_Savings_Account_Landscape

I believe that there is still no short term trading fee at WellsTrade. This assumes (a) that you consider WellsTrade a major brokerage, and (b) that you want to have anything to do with Wells Fargo.
Elsewhere, the minimum seems to be 60 days, e.g. at Fidelity and Vanguard. Note that both of these brokerages impose restrictions on the frequency of short term round trips you can make, e.g. Vanguard's policy. If you're just worried about the occasional short term trade, these won't affect you.
Note that TDAmeritrade has lots of different fee schedules for various types of accounts. For example, I had a TDA account attached to my HSA account. There, the TF commissions were about half what it costs in their "standard" account, and the short term trading period was either 60 or 90 days. This doesn't help you, but could help others who might be looking at these special accounts and just assume the 180 day restriction applied there as well.

Great fund...have owned it for a few years. Thanks for update...going to buy a starter position in my hsa.

@Junkster: Glad you enjoyed the article. I must admit I didn't know what a Xterras was, had to look it up. For those of you ,like myself, who are car challenged, here is a little info on the Xterras
Regards,
Ted
The Nissan Xterra is a truck that was manufactured and marketed by Nissan Motors across two generations, sharing its platform with the Nissan Frontier pickup. Both generations of the Xterra featured a two-box design with a raised rear roofline to enable stadium seating—as well as a bump on the rearmost door expressing
In 2015 Nissan Xterra Discontinued in U.S. ... The Xterra, which competes against the Jeep Wrangler, is being discontinued for regulatory reasons. Nissan would have had to invest in upgraded safety and emissions equipment for what is a fairly limited audience.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Xterras+image&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=HSA_PIqL7ohHHM%3A%2C6XUI7TOndHinRM%2C_&usg=__Mf3ENnwEfZ-Hs4fR1uRycFVBOQU=&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi6oMevkM7aAhWN94MKHZ9qBgwQ9QEILTAB#imgrc=HSA_PIqL7ohHHM:

Unbelievable-2.25/3.75 loads on Pimco bond fund A shares?!

I still have access to a 1 penny HSA account at TDAmeritrade. When I put in a test buy, PONAX shows up as NTF, but when I research the fund, even after logging in, it shows a load.
So TDA may be selling PIMCO A shares load waived while not having updated its research pages yet. Or TDA may be giving a special break to HSA accounts (they do get some better terms). Or that NTF icon may have been in error. With just one penny in the account, I can't execute a real trade.