I have a couple of 3" chambered English wildfowl guns, one has a straight grip and weighs 7 lbs, the other has a `Price of Wales` grip and weighs 7 lbs 4 oz. Neither produces excessive recoil. The gun with the semi-pistol grip is particularly easy to shoot, not I think because of the grip but because it has short, 27" barrels with the extra weight in the action and breech ends of the barrels. I suppose the point is that a three inch gun isn`t going to be used anything like as much as a general game gun - and neither is a rifle. I would have thought that recoil is pretty similar in both to a 9.3x74R so can`t see a problem with a straight gripped rifle in that calibre - especially as the rifle is likely to be heavier.
I know what you mean about `magnumitis` but don`t think it always applies. When Chuck Hawks was looking for an English hammer gun recently his specification pretty well matched the American upland game gun detailed earlier in the thread. His concern was that without the weight shooting the gun would be uncomfortable. I can`t see that myself - especially as guns used for driven Pheasant shoots weigh in the order of a pound less and could be expected to fire at least a couple of hundred cartridges in a day. In the past several hundred cartridges a day were often used...........I reckon a couple of hundred three inch cartridges a day would cause anyone to become recoil `shy` before very long.