gmarr,
I learned to deer and hog hunt mostly at Bull Creek, but also a little at 3 Lakes. Although I hunted with .308 there, I had friends who hunted with .243. Years later, I purchased a .243 for my oldest to cut her teeth hunting on hogs and deer.
I cannot count the number of hogs and deer taken with the .243 that I have helped haul out or been present for the shot. Based on my experience, backed up by the numbers in terms of ft-lbs of energy, the .243 is more than capable to taking hogs and deer.
That being said, lets quantify it with the size of the deer and hogs... I have only witnessed deer up to ~ 130 pounds live weight and hogs up to 250 pounds taken with the .243. In Florida, most of your deer are ~ 90 pounds on the hoof as I recall...
The .243 is loaded with a diverse selection of bullets. Its worth mentioning that you need to match the bullet with the game. I would not recommend using varmint bullets on anything other than that.... varmints. However, there are useful selections of 90+ gr soft-pointed bullets designed for medium game. For hogs/deer, I'd stick to those. In Florida, I saw the Winchester Powerpoints and Remington Corelokts do just fine. In my daughter's rifle, the Winchester Ballistic Silvertip (in either 95 or 100 gr, can't recall which) grouped best in her Vanguard youth and performed well with 1-shot kills on her first deer and a 250 pound sow before we retired it for an AR in 6.8 that she liked better. Now I like to carry it! Light, mild recoiling, and more than capable rifle.
243 is overrated and over exaggerated.
I disagree... For the purposes of the discussion the OP is looking at for deer/hog, especially in FL, unless you are going after hogzilla, it is more than adequate.
Slightly off mark with a shot
And this differs from any other round how? I had a guy at Bull Creek shoot 2 deer with .338 WM around 1991 and both went unrecovered... Bullets designed for heavy/large game shot at a 90 pound deer did not expand and basically acted like FMJ is the general thought... And if you don't hit them where it matters, no amount of magnum is going to make up for it.