I think you kind of answered it yourself.   If your portfolio generates sufficient income and/or you can avoid dividend cuts you're fine.  The subject in the article seemingly generates more than enough income with his core pension and dividends supplementing.  But if you're yielding just enough cash flow for your spend and your dividends are cut and it may force you to pull from your capital.  If you don't have a large enough bond mix or cash and you're needing to pull from your equity side that just dropped 30%, you risk potential ruin during from sequence of returns early in your retirement.