It looks like you're right. A lump sum invested exactly 5 years ago would still not be displaying fantastic returns when compared to deposits. I guess that's the impact of timing, the Eurostoxx 50 fell until around the middle of 2003 so 5 year returns don't look great. Although time rather than timing is rightly stressed as the important factor in these investments, clearly timing has quite an effect whether we like it or not. I guess the only way of dealing with this is cost averaging by drip feeding a lump sum into the market. In this case, you would be looking at better returns now on such an investment. However recent posts discussing cost averaging here would indicate that it's no magic bullet and will cut your returns in a rising market.
Considering you're looking at a 20+ years term, one would expect the effect of time to still give a substantially better return than deposits regardless of timing, but of course there are no guarantees with this type of investment.