As per suggestion, now a topic of its own:

I'm about to open a Roth IRA with Vanguard, as per advice on the other thread. It looks like I have an option to choose between Vanguard mutual funds and stocks, bonds, and non-vanguard funds. Anyone want to give me a rundown on the differences, or a recommendation? What other choices can I expect to have to make for this account?

Start here.

The biggest question to me is how are you planning to invest. If you plan on investing smaller amounts on a regular basis than funds are probably your best bet. Anything you have to pay for should only be done when you have large enough amounts to invest that it mitigates the transaction cost. Also, while I love Vanguard as a fund company, they are, IMO too expensive as a brokerage so I wouldn't buy stocks, individual bonds, or non-vanguard funds through them.

For the VAST majority of people, funds are the way to go. They're easy, inexpensive and usually outperform manual stock pickers with much less risk.

While I haven't opened an account with Vanguard, I am assuming you will have to choose what investment your money is in when it is not invested in stocks/funds/etf's/ whatever your liking. Depending on how much you invest, you should be able to get a decent yield out of funds that are uninvested.

Money that is uninvested is usually sitting in their money market account so you make about the same as a savings account. Not great for retirement.

Schwab allows for money to be "swept" into an account that earns interest based on a tier system determined by the amount of assets you have. You're right though, not the greatest for a retirement account, but sometimes if you are trying to decide what to invest in, it is best to get in the right account with the highest amount of interest possible. Assuming you are 100% invested at all times, it really makes little to no difference though.