I consider TIPS to be a steady loser, myself. Once inflation starts... and I believe it will as its the only way to cut the real value of outstanding debt... TIPS are a steadily losing investment, because you pay tax on the interest you receive.
Assume you are in a 35% tax bracket, the TIP pays 2% above the government calculated inflation rate, and inflation gets to 8%. What happens? You get 10% interest and pay 3.5% tax. So your real return on a TIP under those circumstances is -1.5% (the 6.5% you keep less the 8% inflation).
Now, TIPS may be the best of a bunch of bad choices, but they will never do very well. On the other hand, they yield a bit more than cash and don’t have the same level of interest rate risk as a regular bond, so you can treat them as a cash substitute and hope you will be smart enough to convert them into something better (like the gold surge we missed) when the time comes.
Since it is in a tax deferred account (IRA), I am not sure about the tax implications. I am not expecting to have much in the way of income in retirement outside of the IRA/401k (lousy company pension and Social Security will be history by then).
When I bought them they were yielding 3% over inflation. I still think this is a solid investment but not my only investment. I view it as my way of achieving an inflation indexed annuity (something us private workers don’t get to have). The other 60% of my portfolio will cycle around with other investments.