It’s in our culture to think bigger is better, and we even try to convince each other it is. But the data out there shows defensive shooting is largely like shooting rabbits, and not really like hunting big game - pretty much ANY centerfire pistol is more than big enough to do the task as well as it can be done. So more is just more - and usually just means more weight, more recoil, and more wasted space in the magazine.
For the record, I refused the Ellifritz dataset the first time I saw it. It’s counter-intuitive to see these pipsqueak cartridges with equal or superior performance in real world data. Surely more bullet weight is better? Surely more power is better? Surely a larger framed pistol is better? But the data holds water when you start poking at it. So in the real world, we’re not really asking very much of our handguns... so having a .357mag, capable of dropping a deer at 100 yards, really isn’t pertinent for stopping a bad guy at arms’ reach. I really feel like I’m better armed carrying a G22 than carrying a G19, but statistically, I’m not - I’ve just been mislead by the common popular opinion for decades of my life.