Having settled into that odd gray area between the last of the country's two big paid holidays, those of you still in a turkey and "A Christmas Story" marathon haze may be phoning it in this week. So let us not try to delve too deeply into the complexities of 401(k) financing and the slightly pathetic nature of the 11th hour fiscal cliff fixes – or lack thereof.

But it is indeed an appropriate time to look back (lord knows all the TV stations are preparing their own Year in Review highlight reels) and consider the great experiment – useful or not – that was this year's roll-out of the 401(k) and 403(b) fee disclosure regulations. For they were the closest thing the retirement industry is going to get to headline news, perhaps ever – even if that was just a fading blip on the mid-year news cycle.

And as many have noted, in retrospect, while you all worked hard to prepare for the disclosures – despite the DOL continuing to move the target, seemingly at whim, until the latest moment possible – the headaches, the wrangling and the rushing to meet the deadlines all seem to have been met with a collective shrug by the participant public.