I think, too, that how plentiful/available game is plays into things. Guys in areas with lots of elk, liberal seasons, multiple tags... tend to say things like "People should just let the raghorns grow up!" or "If I miss an opportunity, so what? there's always tomorrow". Guys hunting elk in areas where not a lot of animals get killed might naturally feel differently.
We all know that there's a LOT of game in Alaska. Things are different up there. Us lower-48 guys save up for years to spend a week up there. It could be rightly called a hunter's paradise, could it not? So, when we have (for instance) Steelhead demonstrating that he can hunt empty by jacking all the shells out of his rifle with a buck watching, what I think he is not understanding is that people hunt blacktail on the west side of Oregon, for example, for FIVE WEEKS and the overall success rate of the tag hovers around 12%... it's extremely possible to hunt a bunch of days in the season and never see a deer, much less a buck, much less a buck in shootable circumstances. We are not exactly swimming in the things; you can't just walk out on a dare and jack the shells out of your rifle in front of the nearest buck! So to handicap oneself by requiring the noise and movement of chambering a round is not sensible in my opinion. Especially since, as I and 70% of the Campfire contend, it is perfectly possible to hunt safely with a round in the chamber.
Anyway, I do think the ease of hunting and/or availability of the quarry factors into things... just following up on Dobers idea here.
