Agreed on bullets, but they've been very good for handloaders since the Partition. Premium bullets in factory are more recent.
Two new things are the wider spread prosperity to own and use several rifles and a change in hunting methods.
A generation or two ago it was pretty typical for even rather serious hunters to use single medium / big game rifle, and one for everything needs to be weighted toward the bigger game.
Feeders, cameras, food lots, and farm and ranch hunting have made some hunting be done in a much more controlled environment, allowing those hunting in it to not have to choose enough cartridge for the worst case scenario or even the best case of a mixed bag on the same hunt.
