Adjusted for inflation, buying and holding was pretty awesome between 1984 and 2000. It has proven to be pretty awful since 2000. I base this on an inflation adjusted price chart, including reinvested dividends, of the S&P 500.
Go ahead and run the numbers yourself: http://dqydj.net/sp-500-return-calculator/
Thats because
1) both are quite short times for stock based retirement duration
2) If you put it at 2000 you are just before a big crash. Of course, if you invest all your money at a high (instead of growing your stash through at least one high and low), you get less out of it.
And you have to remember that the S&P 500 is not the world and US inflation is not the worlds infaltion ;)
Just putting the end date before the last crash (2007) gives you an 3.98% inflation adjusted return in the last 10 years.
Lets assume you are a WW2 mustachian GI. Your first thing in adult life was fighting in the war. After that you lived as a mustachian and retired in 1960 and put all your money in the S&P 500.
Your inflation adjusted return at 2013 would be 5,7%
Or this GI lived in germany after that and used the DAX. Same start, 1960 (and 62 was a crash, dont know about the US), end in 2013. Return (non-inflation) is ~7%. With inflation this would also get out at least 4%, which is considered the save withdrawal rate.
Of course, if you invested all your money in the DAX in the lowest end of 2008, you would have a yearly return above 20% today. If you bought the Nikkei in the spring of 2013 and sold it half a year later, I think it was ~50%? (That girl band - rising nikkei, rising skirt hem line - really worked LOL)