Here's what I think.

When I started posting here, the forum was a lot more tolerant of discussions of subjects like active investing.  If you go back and look at the earliest posts, this was truly a Vanguard forum.  People discussed subjects like Healthcare Fund and Dan Wiener without going stark raving mad.

At some point, the DFA proponents started posting more frequently.  Slowly, the forum shifted to a very pro-indexing crowd.  People who bought funds like Primecap were openly called "losers".  Buying a fund like Windsor II was compared to going to Vegas.

Oddly, the DFA slice and dicers and the TSMers got along famously, even though they couldn't be more different in their overall investing philosophies. 

My conclusion after all these years is this: the focus on active/passive is a distraction.  The focus should be on buying low-cost funds and diversifying.  That's all.  The active/passive distinction can make for some fine pissing contests, but it doesn't really accomplish a lot in the end.

Petrocelli