That's a picture you don't want to see!Your high school experiences are recreated in NC a thousand time every weekend. In the eastern part of the state folks love their whole hogs.
And Tom asked a good question that I have no answer for. In the CS cooking at 225-250* I'll consider a butt pullable at 190* and have only gone higher on a few occasions. The 200-210* some folks speak of produces mush for me.
On the pig cookers, I cook at an average of about 300*, again to about 190* for a pullable product. I do notice a difference in that these butts have more intermuscular fat and a little more connective tissue, but that is removed during pulling pretty easily.
If I'm trying to sleep during the night, I'll turn the pig cooker down to 225-250* so it'll take longer to cook and I can sleep. These butts are more consistent with the butts from my CS, but can be a little dryer because the cooker flows a lot more air. I have always assumed the difference was due to air flow, but it may very well be influenced by cooking temp even more. Hummmmmmmmmmmm..........
I know that I've tried cooking chicken halves at 250* for timing reasons, but the chicken comes out much better at 350-375*. Much better texture IMO, and great skin.