For gosh sakes, stop trying to argue. There is no side to debate.
Paying off debt has lower expected returns, but greater certainty and reduced volatility.
Investing has higher volatility of possible outcomes and also higher expected returns.
Insisting that someone knows the ideal asset allocation for the future for everyone is preposterous.
Trying to be diplomatic here. I think one of the reasons we've spun our wheels so much on
this part of the debate is that people are defining risk differently. Higher volatility does increase risk some, but higher returns
decreases risk (if we're talking risk of ruin at least). Thus, investing in a more volatile but higher expectation product can actually reduce risk in some circumstances. This is true for me as I'm still early in the process and working on accumulation. This would not be true for people like you, Blue House, or EnjoyIt who are at the end of your accumulation stage and are close to having 'enough'. For me, paying off the mortgage early would be incredibly risky, and what I see is that a lot posters come in who are also early in the accumulation stage and plan on or are told to kill off their mortgage as fast as possible, when generally they should be doing the opposite, both for higher returns
and for lower risk.