I killed my first deer with one (it worked!) and one of my funnest deer (it worked!) with mine and used it for elk for several seasons (I sucked!)... never had ANY doubt it'd work effectively.
But as a guy descends in loonyism, if a guy does, the '06 becomes a piñata to beat on while "besting" the '06 in whichever way they choose.
My personal take on it is that for the recoil investment, I can beat the performance pretty dramatically. Especially as the ranges stretch out.
I used to consider my '06 sort of the center of gravity in my gun safe in the sense that it stayed put as a known constant, allowing me to screw around with other, more trendy, stuff while having the security blanket of a known-good all arounder to fall back in if needed. This winter I decided, as part of a general de-cluttering of my life (hey, you try living on a rural property for 25 years! Shït piles up on ya!) that rather than buy a donor or an action for my next build, a heavy 338 EDGE, I'd repurpose my '06 action. So I pulled apart a really good 30-06, opened up the bolt face, milled the bolt for an M16 style extractor, and opened the feed rails. In other words, I killed that 30-06. Dead.
If I need to hit something I prefer my 7 WSM's or perhaps the 6.5 SAUM I just finished; more performance, less recoil. If I need to REALLY hit something I'll use my .338.
With today's bullets I'd submit a short-action 7mm magnum leaves an '06 so far in the dust that it's just hard to justify an '06. Then again.... it's not like there's short-action 7mm magnums just laying around either... you gotta work for 'em.
