I've never owned or even shot an AR for comparison, but I have no regrets on buying my unissued-grade Yugo SKS, for reasons others have doubtless mentioned as well as maybe some others:
-Learning experience. It was my first "real" rifle, and since it was cosmo'd-up...there's no choice but to break it down totally and clean it before you can fire it the first time...and with that comes another lesson:
-You get what you pay for, except when you get more. I was reminded of a fellow member's quote about wikipedia. Well, when I got the rifle I also bought a translation of an early Russian manual. Good read, very interesting...
But for what I really bought it for (breakdown/reasssembly instructuons) - surplusrifle.com was FAR more helpful!
-History. I've never been one for "antique-ing." But just holding the stuff that came with my old Commie battle rifle sent a bit of a chill down my spine. I don't think I've ever held "history" in my hands before. Even though MY SKS had not seen any battle action, I thought about the others like it that had. The pouches, how a soldier's life would depend on the sixty rounds of ammo in the stripper clips. The oiler (it actually had oil IN it), cleaning kit, and what I guess was an early version of the "bore-snake" - I held them and thought of soldiers out in the field, probably in ungodly conditions, using them to keep the weapon in the best shape possible...or at least to where it would go "boom" when they needed it to!
-Price. Low cost + High quality = VALUE!
I've kept mine totally stock, even use the original sling. Apparently from what I know about "assault" weapons laws (funny they apply to a gun that was NEVER designed to be full-auto OR hold more than 10 rounds!) this is the safest thing to do anyway?
I'm happy enough with the stripper clip setup, which is good since I hear more bad things than good about removable/high-cap mags for the SKS...
Again I don't know how it stacks up to the AR, but the SKS is pretty simple if even I could strip one without any help (well, short of an excellent internet tutorial)....