Growth and value investing has been on life support for a long time now. Last year, someone finally pulled the plug.

A quick search of the ETF database will show you something quite telling—71 ETFs are dedicated to a slice of the market self-defined as either “growth” or “value.” That’s nearly 10 percent of the U.S. ETF market.

But honestly, why?

First, there’s a definitional issue. Russell (just to pick one index provider) defines their growth and value universe based on two characteristics: price-to-book and “projected growth” based on IBES (Institutional Brokers’ Estimate System) consensus estimates. This very distinction makes the indexer in me cringe. By taking the market and slicing it into buckets, and then picking one, investors are fundamentally picking stocks, and I still believe that rarely makes sense.

Let’s take a look under the hood at one family of growth and value: the iShares Russell 3000 series.