>They are good example of a firm that did well for 20 years then sputtered for last 20 years. So many investors have records like that.<

Apparently, 20 years is not a long enough time period to evaluate "long term" investors. One or two huge random successes or failures can have a huge positive/negative impact on your record. That's true of me too. Buying BRKA in 86-87 was a huge positive but having LVLT on and off since 2000 was a drag. Fortunately, there were a couple of other big successes and no other big failures.