What's ridiculous about it? Seems reasonable to me...

I kid. And I think (hope) Paddy was joking too.

I have been in the business as well for 10+ years, and I agree with much of what you said, although I don't think going with an independent advisor is necessarily better than going with someone from one of the big wirehouses. Independent advisors often claim that wirehouse guys like to push proprietary products to their clients, but that has not been anything I've ever seen in my time at 2 major wirehouse firms. Plus, there is a level of oversight at the major wirehouses that does not exist at smaller independent firms. A Madoff-like scenario is impossible at any of the big wires.

This isn't to say that everything is always great at big wirehouses-- there are plenty of crappy advisors who charge too much for what they actually provide. A lot of egomaniacs who think they are big time stock pickers when they are actually average at best (and sometimes much worse than average). But there are independent guys who fit the same profile. My point is, don't rule out a huge subset of advisors just based on the firm that they work at. We all do a lot of the same things regardless of our firm. Find a couple of trusted friends and ask them if they like their advisors, and if they do, ask for an introduction to see if they seem like a good fit. Beware of anyone that promises outsized returns-- in fact, I would be wary of anyone that focuses any of their presentation on past returns because: a) they are probably full of shit, and b) any discussion of returns should be from a goals-based perspective (i.e. what type of returns are needed based on your financial goals and is this commensurate with the level of risk you are willing to take on?).

Finally, I agree that the website the OP linked looks fairly bunk. I would google "finra broker check" and enter the name and firm of any prospective advisor. Obviously, any disclosures or events that show up should be appropriately treated as red flags (but not necessarily disqualifying events, depending on the scenario-- sometimes bad clients make ridiculous, baseless complaints that good advisors are forced to report, even if they did nothing wrong).