Personally, I’ve come to find the 6mm ARC/6.5 Grendel/6 creedmoor/243 win/6.5 creed/7-08 win class of cartridges to be largely ideal for whitetail hunting with few to no concessions. Even hesitating to include the 7-08 and 6.5 creed into that category. Just feels like I’m doing something wrong if I need more than 100-120 grains of bullet and more than 30-40grn of powder just to kill a deer.
My first deer rifle of my own was a .30-06 almost 25 years ago, and I have taken a lot of deer with it and others over the years. I struggle to justify hauling it around any more - if I need 180grn+ of bullet, then I want more than just 60grn of powder. Equally, As much as I have enjoyed the 7mmRM over the years, if I’m burning that much powder, I typically want more performance downrange than is provided by 140-160grn bullets.
Horses for courses.