Taking small deer vs big bucks

This can be a very hot topic among vetran deer hunters.  I'm not a seasoned hunter, but I will share my two cents here.  There are many great points about waiting to only take big bucks.  A big issue with many people is preserving habitat.  If you only take older bucks, you preserve the population in the area you hunt by ensuring the doe's and young bucks breed together, thus keeping the population high and continuing to let those younger bucks grow.  Also, there is a sense of competition in every hunter that wants to take the "big one" and beat out all your friends. 

On the other hand there are those that simply love to hunt, and will, depending on your zone, take the "if it's brown it's down" mentality.

I can see both sides.  We just accuired some land, and my family and I have enjoyed our first year of deer hunting this past fall.  I began the season by wanting to only take a decent size buck in order to preserve our population.  Hearing several close shots all morning from other hunters, I let several nice size doe's go early Saturday morning hoping to see a bigger buck later that weekend.  Unfortunately the weather turned for the worst as the weekend pressed on and I ended up taking a small buck (we could take both sex's in our zone) Sat afternoon. 

When it comes right down to it, yes I'd prefer to wait for a nice buck, but you do not know what the future holds, and my feeling is, if you're out there, and have the opportunity, you may only have one chance to take it.