Whups: Edit, had 1 lb too much extra light DME in beersmith.
If I use your CORRECT recipe, I get 1.044. If you got 1.043, you are dead on...(never worry about 0.001 difference!).
The people who got higher OGs were either boiling off too much water OR doing it all-grain, in which case they effed up their effeciency guestimates.