What do you consider moderate and what is large? 4 frame for moderate? Is 6 large? 5?
What is ideal weight/frame of a cow in your area?
I recently attended the Clemson bull test sale. I remember an angus bull that had good gain, wda and performance. But he was about a 4.5 frame if I remember correctly. Bidding was slow and he sold about $2000 less than comparable larger frame bulls.
Remember the angus elephant ads of the 80's? They were afraid of losing bull sales to larger breeds. Those "large" breeds are much more "moderate" now, but I suspect that many angus have increased their weights since 1984.
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Still a lot of variation in cattle due to individual preferences, local environments, numbers of players in the chain, variety of marketing methods and many ownership changes and pricing points . Each player works based on his selling pricing at the next point in the chain, not the end product. Chicken and pork are now very consistent in size, efficiency, and quality. Decisions for chicken and pork are made based on end product and final profitability. Beef cattle don't fit that integration, but it would be nice if there was more consistency in the product and more predictable rewards.