Lots of ways to skin a cat - we all make the choices that seem best to us. I remember buying for dividends (bear in mind I'm NOT,nor was, any kind of savant investor) back in 2007. BofA had great consistent dividends, so I sold the gal on investing in the stock, which promptly went down. Perfect! We can buy more shares cheaper honey! So plunked more money in. And it dropped again. Think we bought several times as it fell and I believe dividends were cut, but don't really remember as I was caught up in a rock solid bank falling from $40 to $3~. We did sell, as opposed to the GM stock we held until they went banko and declared our stock worthless.
Many have gone bust with real estate as well, and I can imagine rent controls and onerous regulations that could ruin us. Shoot, various municipalities and companies and whole countries have reneged on their pension promises, right? So are pensions rock solid? No sure things in this world, just choices. I'm too chicken to go with just one option, so we have rentals and stocks and contracts and loans and cash - and we might not be considered retired because we keep pretty direct control of a lot of our nest egg.