Your post reminded me of an email I got the other day. It was about IRA's and the value of compound interest. It gave this example:
If you have $14,000 in your IRA by the time you're 26 (that's 2k a year for 7 years) you never have to put any more into it and you'll have more at retirement (about a million dollars) than the person who starts putting in 2k every year at the age of 26.
That example you gave was quite the reality 38 years ago. And even though the interest rates on moderately conservative issues aren't going to hit the peaks they did during the last 4 decades, doing the same as you wrote about would leave someone in very adequate shape by age 60, even adjusting for inflation.
Oh that Americans placed a premium on "personal responsibility".