I think that rifles can be enjoyed in both ways. A modern rifle, set up the way you like, works great and fits and does exactly what you want. A classic gun, left in classic form, is not only collectable, it provides a classic experience. Shoulder your Enfield or your Mosin and you are feeling and seeing and hearing what thousands of other young men once felt long ago.
Part of the charm of an unmolested classic is that it teaches us things. Our first impression, if not wrong, is always inaccurate and incomplete. Spend time with a gun and learn why it was made the way it was, and you'll start to see some hidden logic in the design, some hidden beauty.
That hard butt plate is hard on purpose - it was designed, quite deliberately, for use as an impact weapon. Did you know that the odd mottled stock appearance of the Finnish M39 nagant rifles was also deliberate, a distinctive form of subtle camouflage? The reinforced nose of the enfield rifle a reflection of the British Army's belief in the power and importance of the bayonet? The ridiculously long range of the sight settings was for volley fire at distant targets, to create a 'beaten zone' like tiny artillery? Look up the details of the incredible finish the Japanese put on their wooden stocks of their rifles. While you are at it, learn to spot the late war parts, and you can see, step by step, the desperate decline of their logistical capability as they sacrificed cosmetic and seldom-used features to get badly-needed rifles out of the factories and into the hands of their troops. Look at the pride and attention and utterly unnecessary machining work that went into making a barrel band for an early K98 rifle. Look at the accuracy and precision built in to every Swede mauser. They were not weird old guns, the day they were made. They were state of the art, high-tech, quality arms made for the most important purpose in the world.
And in another fifty years they won't be any less special, I assure you.
Saw the forestock off, refinish in poly and screw a scope into the top, and all you'll have is something that does not compete very well with what you might have bought off the shelf at WalMart.
Buy them both, and enjoy them both. If someone really wants a bubba gun, they can find something that's been pre-bubbaed, and then build it back up into something they like. My favorite deer rifle is a sporterized Swede carbine, which I picked up for next to nothing and which now looks a lot nicer than it did before.