What you have astutely pointed out can be said of several old standbys. I have had the same experiance with Nozler partition's, Speer grand slams in the 180 -190 grain persuasions running at 2900 - 3000 fps out of a Win Mag. These bullets could be bought without mortgaging the house back in the 70's and 80's. They were considered "premium" but did not command the differential in price between plain vanilla. I believe the difference today is not performance but marketing.