For most stocks you're not going to get out of paying fees unless you go with a low quality cut rate broker like Robinhood. With a high quality discount broker like Fidelity, or even Vanguard, you're going to be paying $7-$8 per trade.
To answer your question, I'm not anti index funds. My wife and I have about half of our portfolio in VTSAX, VTIAX, and Fidelity equivalents. The other half is spread across about 25 individual positions. I've tried to equally weight across sectors (two packaged good giants, three soda manufacturers, two industrial giants, etc) but some plum opportunities presented themselves earlier this year and so we ended up pretty heavy in oil. Over time I'll be balancing that back out as I add new capital.
