There is no more wasted meat than an unrecovered animal. I have never worried about eating up to the bullet hole. I do worry about killing cleanly, quickly, and humanely.
So bullet performance for me is measured by how reliably (not how fast, but how consistently with repeatable results) a bullet puts an animal down. The old DRT trope is not important, because there is simply nothing that will do it every time. My experience seems to indicate that high speed frangible bullets make for more DRT animals than big and slow, depending of course on where the shot goes, and I do not like to shoot big game with highly frangible bullets. CNS shots are the most dramatic of all, but I seldom try for that as the targets are all way smaller than I like in hunting situations. So I want a bullet that produces violent enough expansion inside the animal to be certainly lethal, but which will always penetrate completely on broadside shots so that there will be enough reliable penetration to reach vital organs on angling shots, and for the useful blood trail that usually results. Bigger is not necessarily better to me. Big enough is necessary, but that is way smaller than .458 for N.A. game in my view. There is no doubt that larger diameter bullets can kill effectively, but there is nothing magical about them. Bullets up to about .338 or .35 are plenty big enough for me and can do everything I need done. Far more important to me is bullet construction than actual bullet diameter or weight.
I also want a trajectory that can work at any range I want to shoot, and that includes longer shots than I would be willing to attempt with something like the .45-70. Any of the "usual suspects" you mention (and many others) will have an almost identical trajectory out to about 350 to 400 yards, and all of them are certainly "usable" with a little thought and calculation on the shooter's part. I don't shoot at any living things beyond that, but I will shoot if I have a good enough rest and a stationary target out to that range. That means bigger is not necessarily better to me again, and I seldom think about needing anything bigger than about .338 or .35 for anything I do. There are cases that will drive all those bullets fast enough to give me the trajectory I need for hunting.
More important than bullet diameter and weight is bullet construction. I do tend to favor "heavy for caliber" bullets as I have found that the combination of expansion and reliable penetration usually comes in heavier bullets for any given caliber, but I seldom use the heaviest because of my desire to preserve as much trajectory as I can get from my hunting cartridges. I will reveal my age by saying the first bullets that I used that performed as I want were the Nosler Partitions, and I still measure other bullets by the performance I got from them. There have been serious advances in bullet technology in recent years, and there are now others that perform as well, but very few that I believe are real advancements over that tested design.
All cartridges suitable for hunting big game animals in N.A. will have some recoil. Anyone who has no major health issues, and who is willing to learn proper shooting techniques, and who is willing to practice can easily learn to shoot cartridges that have way more theoretical recoil than Chuck Hawk's 20 ft/lbs limits without flinching. It's true that the vast majority of hunting cartridges used in N.A. have recoil that is less than the 20 ft/lb level, but to suggest that is some sort of limit is just silly. Chuck Hawks says quite a few things like they are ultimate truths when, in fact, they are just things he says to sound like he knows stuff others don't. Felt recoil (as opposed to calculated recoil) is very dependent on stock design and fit. I feel most people who talk about "pushes"vs "shoves" are actually talking about stock design and not cartridges at all.
My advice is to find a cartridge that will give you the trajectory, the terminal performance, and reliable humane killing of the game you are hunting, and learn to shoot it well. There are no rules like "Bigger is Better", or "20 ft/lbs of recoil is the limit", or you need to be able "to eat right to the bullet hole" that you need to learn or follow, because there are LOTS of cartridges that are suitable for hunting in N.A. that you could use for a lifetime and have no regrets. You can learn to shoot anything normally considered a hunting round if you want and have a good fitting stock.
Looking for the biggest caliber with the lightest recoil is a waste of effort. If it is a big bullet, and it has very little recoil, it will be because it's not very suitable for hunting. If it is big and heavy, and it is suitable for hunting, you can expect some serious recoil.
