"The same was said of Berkshire Hathaway for the majority of its run under Warren Buffet, a success that has recently begun to wane."

Where do you get the "success that has recently started to wane"? Berkshire Hathaway has continued to outperform the market, check 5 and 10 year charts here for example: http://www.fool.com/quote/NYSE/berkshire-hathaway-inc/BRK-A/....

Obviously they haven't had the same level of outsized successes, simply because BRK has grown much bigger, and it's harder to get good returns on larger amounts of capital. But there's no way you can conclude from Berkshire Hathaway's performance that it was just luck after all.

Also, see cs702's comment about how Warren Buffett identified 7 investors in 1984, all of whom went on to outperform the market: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4476166

Seems just before you replied I deleted the parent comment, due to it stretching my analogy a bit too far, and into realms I'm far from authoritative in (or comfortable debating :).