5.45x39 seems to be the ONLY bulk centerfire ammo that's still relatively inexpensive, and seems to have not taken the price hit as badly as other ammo.
Makes me happy I have a SAR2, but I agree it would be nice for some more non-AK options. I remember when Century was selling those 5.45 East German sniper/marksman's rifles. (The SGG, SSG?) it was neat looking and had a Zeiss or Hendsholt (well... the EG "Zeiss", or "Hendsholdt" anyway) scope, and sold for something like only $300 dollars. Nobody wanted them at the time, because only RWS made 5.45 ammo and it sold at oddball caliber commercial hunting ammo prices.
Nobody at the time foresaw the SAR2, other 5.45 AK 74 clones, or Krinkov kits making 5.45x39 modestly popular. So most people who bought them were probably collecting them as oddities at the time.
I think there were lots of problems with those bolt actions, the scopes had no click adjustments, just friction knobs making repeatable sight adjustments nearly impossible. There were problems with accuracy being around 4-6MOA with Russian ammo, 3-4MOA with EG ammo, 2MOA with Commercial 5.45 ammo. Although I remember reading someone (on Usenet? rec.guns maybe?) that trimmed .221 Fireball cases, loaded with overbore .224 bullets could get 1MOA, but you were fire-forming the cases, and there were feeding and extraction issues as the rim size wasn't quite right.
So for a "sniper", at least as the quality required by the needs of a military/police force, it was poor. And during/after reunification West Germany said "No way!"... It's probably just Internet rumor, but the rifles may also have been tainted by being used in "wall duty" to snipe escaping East Germans.