Most business channels will give you advice based upon projecting what has happened in the near-past. Most people are pleased with that and approve of that too. Long-term is actually a long-(short-term).

Your example of telling about the returns of Franklin Prima fund was a real eye-opener (cannot remember the exact post).

@Paramdeep,
While it is a good thing to have a physical paper, it is more like a statement rather than a certificate. Typically, these statements are sent for every transaction as well as one statement at the end of financial year per Fund house (giving a summary of all your holdings by scheme).
However, the statement in no way is final proof of your current holdings, since you may have redeemed some units after the date of statement.
If the AMC gets closed, typically the assets are transferred to a bigger/better player in the market. For example, Alliance got taken over by Birla Sun Life, Zurich sold the MF business to HDFC MF. It is unlikely that you will lose money due to that. However, to minimize such events, stick to large MF houses. For example I wouldn’t consider investing in Sahara MF schemes, even if some schemes give very high returns.
Finally, investing through online sites like fundsindia.com will give you good speed of execution. Safety has to be built slowly on trust over time. I myself do online MF purchases thru ICICIDirect and am ok with the services (they don’t allow some schemes for God only knows what reason). One of my office colleagues invests thru fundsindia.com and hasn’t faced any major hassles so far. Keep in mind that such online transactions must necessarily reflect into a physical statement that you receive, just so that you are upto date that the transaction did indeed happen.
Happy Investing!