RE: location.....
IMO, the bottom line is that "you are only as good as the land you hunt".
We just sold our old farm in Brown County, IL. It is known for big deer and lots of turkeys. We killed both there, but not nearly as often as we would have liked. The property just didn't lend itself to that type of hunting. So we bought another property, and sold our other farm. We now have what we believe to be an extremely high chance of hunting mature bucks, year in and year out. Same with turkeys.
I also think a lot of hunters do not get everything out of their land that they can. Passing on younger animals is a beautiful thing!