Risk tolerance surveys take emotional factors into consideration which can give investors a false sense of security. The market does what it does and does not care about one individual investor's plight or situation vs. another's.  Having said that, quantititative information like time horizon and financial health are indeed relevant to deciding on an asset allocation.

WMB Emerald is more suitable for younger investors because it has a slightly higher allocation to stocks (35%) than does the Standard (30%) or the Silver (25%) version.  This makes sense due to the longer time horizons that younger individuals have.

Time horizon is a critical factor to consider because of the severity of bear markets and the number of years it may take to recoup losses following darker periods in the stock market.  If an individual has, say, 10 years remaining in his lifetime, that may not be enough time to recoup losses - which is a serious threat for seniors who are over-exposed to stocks.

I recommend Schwab and Fidelity as the best brokerage firms to implement WMB.  This is due to the great reporting, user-friendly trading platforms and customer service.  For seniors especially, Fidelity offers an auto-rebalancing program that is unbeatable and makes running the WMB portfolio during retirement a sinch.

RMD stands for Required Minimum Distribution and it is only relevant for seniors who have a traditional IRA or 401K.  It is not relevant for Roth IRA, Roth 401K or taxable account holders.  The IRS wants to tax traditional qualified account holders and makes sure that you take distributions from your retirement accountin order to tax the original contributions, growth and income - albeit at a hopefully lower tax bracket. 

DRIP stands for Dividend ReInvestment Program - and is a great way to reinvest dividends and income back into shares of ETFs or mutual funds.  Schwab offers an easy way to do this on its trading platform.

The optimal percentage that seniors should use to drawdown their retirement accounts to help pay for living expenses is about 4% per annum.  If you divide this amount by 12, you arrive at a good sum that you should liquidate your retirement account on a monthly basis.

If you are generating income, you should be contributing to a Roth IRA.  That amount should be at least 10% of your gross income, paycheck to paycheck.

Yes. Every brokerage account, whether qualified or taxable, allows you to specify a TOD (transfer on death) beneficiary.  You can change this as well at any time.  Just remember that this TOD specification takes precedence over any will that you may have already drafted.