If the stock market and mutual funds aren't your thing, you can always find a credible financial planner to help you. My 401K allows me to move things around between funds. My financial planner tells me when to move things. It's worked well.
Sure. But it takes effort to do so. There are too many people that put off saving for retirement. Then they hit 60 and realize it's too late. What I'm saying is that for a society, pensions worked well because it didn't require intervention and you couldn't just put it off. Taking it out of the hands of individuals was the best for society because there are too many irresponsible individuals.