2muchgun,
A little over a year ago I was in the Tikka factory, listening to the changes being made for the T3x. They were primarily made because some shooters wanted them, not because there were vast, across-the-board problems with the T3. The major requests were from the relatively few shooters who wanted softer recoil pads and stiffer recoil lugs for harder-kicking rifles, but tens of thousands of T3's have been working for a long time now without any problems--including a T3 Lite in 7mm Remington Magnum a friend bought a number of years ago for hunting this part of Montana. He hunts hard and shoots quite a bit and nothing has gone wrong with his rifle, despite often hunting in temperatures below zero.
The other factor that went into the changes was profitability. The demand for Tikkas has been growing very steadily, and the U.S. is by far the largest market. So they could afford to make some changes if that's what some customers wanted.
Yes, there are a bunch of accurate, affordable rifles out there today. I've owned and do own a number of Savages and Ruger Americans, but while their triggers are OK, they do not compare to Tikka triggers. The accuracy of Savages and Rugers is normally better than average to very good, but on average they do not match Tikkas right out of the box. Few rifles do. I would also rate the T/C Venture as better out of the box than Ruger AR's and the cheaper Savages, because the trigger and stock are also better, but the Tikka is definitely a step up from there--which is why there's some difference in price for all four rifles.
Personally, I don't care whether a rifle chambered for a "short-action round" uses a short action, especially when there's so little difference is action weight in typical modern cylindrical actions. In fact I kind of prefer short rounds in longer actions, because there tends to be more flexibility in seating bullets--and if the magazine isn't quite long enough, it can often be easily swapped for a longer magazine. But I do find most arguments for short actions pretty much irrelevant; there are more details why in the column Rick posted a couple of days ago at the head of this forum.
The latest Tikka to show up here was one of the T3 Lite .260 Remingtons offered a Whittaker Guns run last year. The trigger was superb out of the box, unlike the triggers on Savages and RAR's, and it's superbly accurate with almost any load, including Remington Core-Lokt factories. It also weighs only 6-3/4 pounds with scope, which I happen to like since so much of the hunting country around my home is steep and high--and I'm not particularly young anymore. So far it just keeps plunking 140-grain Accubonds into the same tiny groups, which is one reason it will be the rifle I plan to do most of my local hunting with this year--and I do have plenty of choices.
If it wouldn't be your choice for any hunting, well fine, the world also offers plenty of choices. But don't try to convince me Tikkas don't work well.
