WELL STATED. Where I grew up in the hills/mountains of Southern Oregon - back in the day - we had 300 pound Mulies - graded by weight for the freezer - not racks.I think that the 30-06 is about the biggest cartridge the "average" shooter can handle in an off-the-shelf rifle of standard weight, and it will handily knock down anything he's likely to shoot with it on this continent. The long history as a military round ( just like the 308 ) is another thing it has going for it, and the availability of military surplus ammo used to be a big selling point. The guy who only shoots two boxes of cartridges per year can afford to feed it and still have enough cash for a case of beer to take to camp that weekend. There's a ton of casual shooters/hunters out there, and it works well - even with ordinary bullets.
I grew up in the era of the one-rifle hunter, and darn near everybody was shooting 30-caliber in those days. The story was that if you ever go west to hunt elk, or north for moose, the '06 is big enough - and it will certainly kill our skinny little whitetails handily enough. I think that everybody understood that it was way more horsepower than needed for deer, but there was always that "all-around rifle" concept being discussed around the hunting camp card table. I don't know anybody who didn't dream of hunting bigger animals in some far-away place some day, and this is what I think fueled the popularity of these cartridges. Having Grampa's 30-06 handed down to Junior didn't hurt its popularity any, either.
My trust .32 Winchester Special would handle them (170 grain soft nosed Silvertips at a pedestrian 2,200 fps) while dad carried the Sporterized Springfield - 30.06 - for long shots - uncommon though in our thick timber.