As for the dividend timing, the stock falls a bit when it goes ex-div, but you don't get the div of course if you don't own the stock. So I see it as a trade-off that just costs you commissions. Thanks for the question. In recent years it's become very easy for people with modest amounts of saving to invest on their own and still be properly diversified and avoid high fees. They trade like a stock on an exchange, but they are an investment in a large basket of big companies.
Mutual funds are indeed good for diversification.
It also talks about some of the new index units available in the U.S. and abroad. Tax issues and other stuff are updated. All the fund stats in the book are new, and they continue to show that mutual funds lag the indexes. As for Nortel, I wish I knew. Many authors of investment books suggest buying index funds for long term investing.