I agree with most of what you are saying. The fact that Browning did line the barrel took care of the problem though. There was alot of early speculation on the wssm's about being barrel burners with proper proff when they came outa few years ago.

My point with the 300Wsm was it was a caliber introduced that was thought of as very uneeded like the 243Wssm but a few years later it really caught on. That doesnt guarantee that any of the Wssm will catch on though.

I dont think popularity of a round is the best way to judge it anyway. IMO the 280 is prob better then the 270 or 30-06 for deer but its not very popular compared to the other 2. ALso the 260 rem is awesome for deer and isnt very popular. Everyone has a 30-30 and they arent very good balistically, compared to alot of other calibers so sometimes popularity isnt the best measure anyway.