Tom,
As an investor ..not an advisor, I think your bucket idea is useful.
It helps with emotions . I also like your use of max drawdown rather than SD
to gage risk tolerance .

For investors who have enough assets that safe buckets are already full, there remains the problem of equity allocation and management over the longer term . No one enjoys watching their equity bucket fall 50 pct .

In complex problems like investing in public markets there is seldom one answer . While MPT has its flaws in practice , it has some benefits if not rigidly applied..

I am not a theorist . I am looking for managers and systems that outperform
over full market cycles on a risk adjusted basis ..

I recently ran across one that reduces equity exposure gradually as valuations rise over adjusted CAPE averages.. Not perfect .,but very worthwhile .

As an investor , I welcome hearing from any manager ..author or reader .. with a demonstrable equity bucket performance over a full market cycle ( now 10 years ) that outperforms ..risk adjusted the handful of MF we have screened
for said performance ..maximum drawdowns is one of the criteria .

Marvin