Soft point is about all I use for white tail.
Deer are not hard to kill, most any bullet will do the job, if a guy has game run off then maybe the aim was poor.
Generally speaking, I would agree. I think the issue comes from trying to push the limits of the cartridge or projectile, or trying to maximize expansion or penetration. A 180gr expanding cup and core bullet loaded to 308 Win velocities does not fall into those category. If a person were looking for a bullet that would expand and penetrate well on Elk at 600 yds, but didn't want to tear up a lot of meat on whitetail at 50 yds, that person could experience some issues. Marginal cartridges like the 300 blackout can also fall into this category.
I tried using a 110gr vmax out of a 10.5" 300 blackout for hunting just to see if it was a capable bullet. I suspected that it was a little too thin skinned and proved myself right. I had a nice doe come in that field dressed around 130 lbs. I was in a ladder stand that was only about 12' tall. The trail she was on came within about 10 yards of me. I let her pass slightly with the intention of taking a slight quartering away shot so that the projectile would end in the far shoulder (I didn't expect an exit wound). I put the round right behind the shoulder, just above the heart. The bullet hit a rib on entry, and took out about a 2" long section of it. I could see the depression from the missing rib on impact and knew I had hit exactly where I wanted. The up side, she only ran about 25 yards. One of the shortest retrieves I've ever experienced from a heart/lung shot. On the down side, it didn't end up being a heart/lung shot. Upon hitting the rib, the projectile veered significantly rearward and down. It put a 3" hole through the near lung and liver and tried to exit just past the sternum without actually making it through the ribs/meat. I never did find the projectile, and assume that the jacket was ripped into multiple pieces and there was very little left of the core. Total penetration was in the neighborhood of 8". It was 8" worth of some of some pretty nasty devastation, but I delegated that round to home defense and re-zeroed the AR to a 125gr SST that afternoon. On the opposite extreme, a friend of mine shot a decent doe with his 16" 300 BO using 110gr Barnes TAC. He's an accomplished rifleman and hunter, the shot wasn't far, and he's certain he made a good hit, but there was very little blood. It's one of the few deer he ever failed to recover. We suspect that he didn't hit any bone on entry, and the bullet failed to expand. I've known others who've had excellent results with that load and swear by it. I've also used a 120gr Sig Elite monolithic on a doe at about 75 yds (also from the 10.5"). She ran the typical 75 yds before expiring. Entry wound was very small, some damage to the lungs but not a ton, exit wound was moderate. Looked more like I had shot her with my old 45cal ball and patch muzzle loader. That bullet needed more speed. It might be fine from my 16" upper out to 100 yds or so.
The point of all of that is to say that yes, there are times when a bullet just doesn't measure up. If you're using more than enough gun, and you're taking shots at reasonable distances and not using some magic projectile that's advertised to field dress, process, and package the game for you, the the average run of the mill ammo will do a fine job on a white tail, and if they run off its going to be the hunter's fault, not the bullet.
I should add, that I DO like monolithic bullets, and use them a lot for hunting, but I've learned that you have to pay attention to what the bullet is designed to do. If it's intended to be used at higher velocities, or shoot through car doors and walls, maybe it's a little too tough to use at marginal impact velocities. If it was designed to expand at slower impact velocities while also holding together at more moderate speeds, it is likely a great hunting bullet. Its just hard to find companies that design their monolithic bullets to operate like that. Most want them to either impact at relatively high speed, or they design them to shed the pedals and create separate wound channels. There are a few out there that do design them to expand well and drive very deep, and those folks make some really good hunting bullets....
