While shag and mule deer pretty much nailed it above. Truly and I have said it in the past if you just want a tool to shoot a deer then the price point rifles such as the RAR and stevens offerings work fine. Still I don't consider them nice rifles but then I'm older and consider a nice rifle only comes in walnut and blue with nice checkering etc. to me all plastic stocked guns & I have a couple are the same be it a RAR or a Kimber montana.
I do see the OPs point and think there is a real possibility that the nice gun market may become controlled predominately by the smaller boutique companies like Cooper, Kimber etc and the big boys may phase out of the "nice"gun market because they expect a ever expanding volume of sales to satisfy their stockholders.
