If you've been an investor a long time, has your profile adapted or changed with your growth/success? 

Then if you try to live somewhere and invest somewhere else, you have to basically give up control and rely 100% on others to make or break your investment for you ... at that point, you might as well buy a REIT and save yourself the trouble.The good news, though, is that you can make money in RE anywhere really ... just have to adapt and change up your strategies to fit the market dynamics.

However I am still trying to adapt with property management features.  

Real Estate is very dynamic and you have to adapt to the changing market as you maneuver through it.

Personally, I am still working on this skill to adapt my strategy, which is why I've been less active lately as the market has shifted away from my preferred strategies (note this does not mean that there is no profits to be made), but I am already very good at protecting my downside, which is partly why I've been successful over long periods of time.

As the rental market's softened I should adapt and keep that in mind.

Quality matters just as much (and more) than quantity of cash flows.Cash ReservesSkill and flexibility to adapt your investment plan as needed.

With half of this stuff what really matters is the prep and letting it adapt to the humidity, etc.

Then you adapt or discard the ideas as fits your needs. 

Translating the English of his day into the more modern idiom, Darwin said that those species which survive are those which are best adapted to the changes in their environment over time.So, in that context, what you said is correct.