VTI
Vanguard Morningstar Total Stock Market ETF
stock NYSE ETF

I think it’s a pretty large overweight of small caps vs VTI. 27% vs 9% according to portfolio visualizer.

Uh no. He was specifically talking about building a bond ladder in the Inherited account, considering the income in this account as ordinary income so the investments in it should be aligned as such (hence the bond ladder). That's the part that's overly complicated to me. He hadn't specified a specific withdrawal strategy - that was my specific critique. And treating it as income instead of tax deferred investments.
My inherited IRA, the same as all my other accounts - is a three fund portfolio. I have different mixes in different accounts, but they've grown and shifted organically over time. I do have a relatively small taxable account that is the only account that differs from that strategy - and that's because it holds the lowest dividend funds (VTI and some VOO from tax loss harvesting VTI).
And while my situation is a little complex because of growth (in both the account and income) the withdrawal strategy is not - it's really two things:
1. Look at the balance and divide by remaining years
2. If the number in 1 is higher than the current tax bracket, go up a bracket
1. If that higher bracket doesn't need to be done in all years, defer the higher bracket to the later years.

Apologies if this is a silly question, but usually it follows VOO / VTI closely. I see there’s a big difference today.

I proposed a diy 4 fund portfolio that was 60/40 (40%SCHD 20% VTI 25 VTIP and 15% VGSH) and the Schwab rep reviewed and said it was a little heavy towards dividends and I should likely flip the equity allocation and maybe swap VTI for Spy or VOO. Since I planned on a cash reserve he went through the IP and it kinda makes sense to that it could be a real option. What I like about the Schwab rep is that he isn’t pushing a managed fund with AUM fees on me. I suppose I could test drive IP and go diy later on because it’s a tIRA I wouldn’t need to worry about tax implications.

VOO distributions through Q3 this year are about 7% higher than the same period last year and VTI distributions are about 6.9% higher. This may not hold if you have a lot of international exposure. Are you sure you're comparing the same period? Sometimes dividend payments can shift +/- a few days depending on the year and the calendar setup.

VTI/VXUS + tilt position is all you need.

My taxable if VTI and Vxus
I have FXAIX and vscix in my 401K and qqqm, avuv, avdv, and avem in my Roth but I’m also tinkering with my Roth do other than qqqm it might change some

Only need VTI, FTEC/VGT, VXUS, SMH, SCHD and SGOV or SCHO

1-Make regular payments to your IRA, 401k, 403b or whatever you or your employer has available for you.
2-Have your payments go into ROTH (after taxes are taken out) accounts if available.
3-Contribute the maximum amount if possible, if not, increase your contributions with every raise you receive.
4-Invest in an index fund like the S&P 500. Most retirement plans have a fund very similar to the S&P 500. I personally like Vanguard’s VTI which is an ETF, but they have a fund that is basically the same.
5-Don’t borrow from your retirement account!
6-You’re likely going to be tempted to invest in some hot stock or fund along the way. If you do, just invest no more than 10% of your contributions.
7-Start investing as early as possible. ( I probably should have made that #1.)
Personal Comments-
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Intentionally holding VTI, SCHB, and VTSAX is baffling. They are all essentially the same. And buying VTSAX at Schwab incurs load fees - that makes no sense at all.
The other funds that each carves out a niche of the U.S. market are stepping all over each other, very redundant. Looks like you're solving a math problem with neat percentages rather than focusing on what your investments actually are.
At Schwab, choose SCHB and SCHE. Or the ubiquitous VTI and VXUS.

You have a lot of redundancy in your Roth IRA… I would just do 80% VTI and 20% QQQM if you really want to overweight growth/tech.
VTI already has everything in QQQM,VGT,SOXX.
What’s your rationale behind the fund choices? Just make sure you aren’t performance chasing.

I'm not going to criticize the number of ETFs or say it's too complex because I do the same. I will say that when I see several funds in your list that check the same US mega cap box, I wonder what might be making you feel uncertain? Any one, and just one, of SCHB, VTI/VTSAX, VOO, SCHX would be sufficient. Me? I'd choose something that closely tracks the SP500's. Something like VOO. Why? Because in the future you may want to protect what the position's grown into and SPY or SPX option contracts are the perfect protection.
https://preview.redd.it/7itiw87nr3th1.png?width=1425&format=png&auto=webp&s=cb37f533fcfadb3457313ed48b753ed68287ae75

The graduation point is fair for a plain small-cap index. Something like 40% of the Russell 2000 is unprofitable companies, which is the drag you're describing. AVUV is the one people recommend because it screens for value and profitability, but it costs 0.25% against 0.03% for VTI, so you're asking the tilt to beat a 22bp hurdle every year, and it has gone multi-year stretches without doing that. I'd treat it as a 10% satellite you're willing to be wrong on, not a core holding.

401k's have limitations, but you should be able to get a VOO or VTI equivalent in there, which then gives more flexibility for your Roth.

Too complicated，make it simple！ VTI+VGT is similar to QQQM. Just invest in QQQM instead of blending so many ETF

People seldom only hold a small cap fund like AVUV (or only IWM for the Russell 2000). Instead of comparing VTI to AVUV, compare VTI to someone holding AVUV+SPMO.
Your "grow out of" idea is covered if in addition holding AVUV for small caps you hold a similar fund for large caps.

First it isn't guaranteed small caps will outperform the broader market despite the fact that they did in the past.
However if we ASSUM they will which your post does then your logic is silly.
Yes some small caps will grow large enough to leave the index but they did so by growing FASTER than the broader market and then slow down once a mid/large cap company.
Small caps can't both outperform as a market capitalization AND also underperform at the same time.
Yes successful small caps will leave the index from time to time because they are now too large and new small caps are formed all the time.
Back to the original premise though small caps did outperform in the past but markets are different today companies tend to remain private for longer they may simply IPO as a large cap. It is also common for major tech to buy up small competitors while they are still private. SO small caps may very well NOT outperform the broader market and it may be wise to just opt out of trying to guess what happens and just own the whole market i.e. VTI. It isn't however for the reasons you mentioned.

(I should preface this by clarifying I'm referring to funds that hold a specific market cap criteria, not picking individual stocks.)
I understand the data shows that historically, small caps have had extended periods of outperforming large caps. Small companies have the potential to grow faster than large ones, at the cost of increased risk of course. But why someone would choose a small cap fund as a core part of their portfolio does not make logical sense to me.
I frequently see etfs such as AVUV get recommended to beginners asking for portfolio advice. If a successful company grows beyond a certain threshold, that company should eventually "graduate” out of that index, right? Shouldn't small cap funds be expected to underperform as the most successful companies grow out of them, leaving the slower growing ones behind?
To me it seems to make more sense to hold total market funds like VTI where the growing companies, including small caps, will be weighted heavier over time. They can't grow out of it. Or if you want to be aggressive, large cap growth funds like SCHG also make sense because it holds the companies best positioned for growth that will continue to compound within that fund, also never growing out of it.
Allocating 10-20% of your portfolio to a small cap fund almost sounds like you’re asking to underperform. Explain why my logic is flawed here.

I own VTI so I want every single company, including NVDA, to do well. But AMD is 60% of my portfolio so that's the top priority.

Nope never had an M. I saw a D on VT in my Roth IRA around the same time, maybe I’m misremembering whether I temporarily saw D’s on VTI and VXUS which are in my taxable brokerage account. But my VT didn’t split like this.