Thanks deaddeer. I think I had your stats and DougE's confused when I asked where could find this stuff. Fact is I've seen it too. I think we all have to agree that results are really still sketchy and based more on a collection of bit and pieces than on good scientific study. Its just too soon to tell.
That being said, I'll enter my personal experience (extensive for one guy but I am just one guy). Spent parts or all of 38 days in the deer woods.
Saw some but not many older bucks. Saw plenty of deer on private ground open only to a few. Saw similar numbers on private ground open to anyone. Also hunted ANF several days. didnt see quite as many deer but saw enough deer and enough sign to believe that there are still way too many deer there. We've let it go too far for too long. Now we're going to have to cut the deer number even further there if we ever want the forest to come back. Yes, the timber industry is applying pressure! What some folks need to understand is that what the timber companies want, a healthy self sustaining constant crop of hardwoods, is what the wildlife there needs too for the long term.

Did the number of "8pts" double? Maybe not. But no one can deny that the average age of our bucks is going up and thats what Dr Alt truly promised from AR.

Smaller management units are the one HUGE disagreement I have with him but just listen to the guys in the sports stores and at the clubs whine about it being too complicated now and you begin to understand why that wont happen for a while.