Mark,

I sincerely agree with the hypothesis made in your article. But you're right, measuring an advisor's effect on an individual's overall financial well-being is difficult to quantify.

Check out David Blanchett's (Morningstar) paper on gamma (a measure on the effectiveness of a financial planner). It's a simple model, but I believe it could be expanded upon to include more factors.

Again thanks for the article, it was an interesting read.