That's a good question big.
After reading alot trying to get into this sport I have an opinion that is based on my very limited experience.

It seems like some years ago alot of magnums were introduced and lots of gun writers in magazines and somepeople on boards like this became obsessed with flat shooting long range guns. There was a "need" to shoot deer at 6000 yards. A problem with "needing" to shoot that far was that it would take a great amount of practice to do it with any success. Practicing alot with some of these long range guns created another problem. Recoil.
It is possible that still wanting to shoot flat longer range guns but not wanted to get beat up doing it produced the "infatuation" with guns like the 243, 25-06, 6.5 etc.
These guns could certainly allow someone to feel like they are long range deer killers with the potential to take deer out to 300-400 yards but not have to endure the pounding it wouyld take to practice with the bigger magnums
Then again I might just have no clue what the heck i just tried to say.