Yep. I've been interested in an M1 Carbine just to have as a plinker, historical provenance doesn't mean anything to me. It's either pay $800 for a commercial gun that will barely run, or pay $1200+ for a beat up GI gun. Heck of a market to be in.
A buddy of mine has a 1945 one that he doesn't shoot. The rear sight is hanging on by a thread and shifts from left to right just as you shoulder the carbine, and then it had a habit of doubling/tripling like a machine gun burst at random. Fun but not too safe... we loaded 3 rounds in the magazine until we shot up our box of 30 Carbine, then retired it from service.
As a gun, it's basically unusable right now, and would require a fair bit of work to get up and running again. From what I've seen of the market, that project / parts grade gun is still probably worth around $900.
The rear sights being loose seem to be an ongoing issue. At least for me. Every one of mine was loose when I got them, and it looks like someone intentionally drove them out of their staking. Once I got them back where they belonged, and restaked them, they have been pretty good about not moving, for the most part. Although I did have to restake the one I was shooting today, as it was a tad loose, and shifted a little left on me. A couple of good whacks with a heavier hammer and punch fixed that. Now I have another reason to take it back out and check zero.
These things are just to much fun to shoot.
As far as parts for getting things fixed, if you have troubles, Numrich/Gun Parts has pretty much anything you need, and at fairly reasonable prices. The one Winchester I have, a "Blue Sky" gun, had the slide break within 100 rounds. As best as I could tell by its few markings, it was a Korean part. Had a USGI replacement in less than a week from Numrich, for around $70.
I really haven't seen any "rough" Carbines among the guns I have seen. Ive seen a couple that were refinished, which to me is a bit of a red flag, but for the most part, they have all been in pretty decent shape. Most of them have been rearsenaled too. The couple that I have seen that were at the higher end of the price range, were those that we still early war original, and still had the flip sight and no bayo lug.
Personally, I do prefer the less beefy, early stocks over the "pot bellys".
I dont know why, but I wasnt into these when they were "cheap". Now Im paying for it, literally.
Although I dont think 30 Carbine ammo was ever really cheap, even when there was a lot of surplus around. I think that was some of it, and I was more into the M1's and M1A's at the time.