About Kimbers....yes, they do make some wonderfully light and trim rifles. Their owners are very loyal and quick to defend their rifle.
Having dealt with Hill Country Rifles lately, I have this to say about my limited experience with them...Hill Country can "accurize" your rifle and give you a sub 1 MOA guarentee. Most accurized rifles I've seen fall closer to 1/2 MOA. There are only a handfull of rifles that HCR won't give a sub MOA guarentee to, and Kimber is one of them.
The last Kimber Montana I picked up felt like it was going to fall apart in my hands. Every part of it rattled. Very dissapointing.
As to the. 308 question (or all other short action suggestions)...I'm sure they're all fantastic. Hell, I remember ready SEVERAL articles about how the 7mm-08 was considered the ULTIMATE whitetail deer round.
I just grew up shooting the 06' family of cartrides and later added in the 7 mags and 300 mags. I guess I'm just more confident in them, and a lot of that has to do with my lack of hunting experience with short action calibers.