There are three types of people in society; sheep, goats, and wolves. Depending on which one you are, you may or may not be a flock animal subject to the abuse of peer pressure and considerate of the opinions and regard others have of you. Personally, I am a goat, and therefore, immune to peer pressure and generally apathetic about what others think of me. If a rifle fit me and felt right, it wouldn't matter what it was called, I'd try to take it home with me. I say try because a lot of rifles feel right to me and I rarely have money for any of them. But if the price was right and I had it...
For your uses, I'd go old school and run some 220 gr RNSPs through a good set of aperture sights. Anything inside 200 yards should be well within the point-blank range of an 06 loaded with anything. A good set of irons dialed in at 100 yards would suffice and would be lighter, handier, faster in many conditions, and much more tolerant of moisture, fog, foliage, mud, ect. If you prefer optics, I'd again keep it simple and lightweight. Anything over a few power magnification can be a handicap at the ranges you're predicting. I'm thinking a fixed 2.5x EER Scout setup or a similar lower power fixed compact scope mounted traditionally- nothing over 4x. Recoil from this setup could be considerable so make sure your optics are rugged and have some eye relief, whatever you decide on.
