I'll share this but understand I like all guns, just not equally .
I'm not into tacticool rifles, I've owned others in the past and I currently own one good one that I'll be keeping long term and it's not an AK.
About 6-8 years ago I was in the market for a good quality "fighting rifle". I sold an old ratty Harley I had laying around and had a few thousand bucks burning a hole in my pocket. I was seriously considering an arsenal AK as they were pretty well regarded at the time. I went to talk to a local shop owner / trainer that I was pretty well acquainted with about putting hands on one. He put it to me simply and his words stuck with me and I've found them to be accurate , here's what he said-
He asked if I knew what an AK cost in decades past. I didn't . he said you used to be able to get a decent AK for a couple hundred bucks, ok so what? These are the same guns. It's not like they've been drastically improved or are something more than they used to be, they just cost more. These are cheap, ratty guns that are worth a couple hundred bucks regardless of what they charge currently. He told me I'd be hard pressed to find a better AK than a Krebs and they happened to be in spitting distance of his shop, he knows the owner and if I really wanted one he'd go grab it for me right now. He said if be much better served with a good AR that's going to be more accurate, better materials and generally better in every way (except maybe the cartridge it's chambered for). You can spend $2000+ on the nicest AK around, it's still a $200 gun, just costs more.
I didn't really know but I trusted the guy and his knowledge . I ended up buying a Daniel defense rifle that's been really nice, cost less and I got optics, sling, mags and ammo and was still under the price of an arsenal or Krebs. Since then I've handled and fired my fair share of AKs, my opinion of them is that even the best ones are pretty crude. They work and good ones will be reasonably accurate but I don't know if many people would say they're nice. Kind of like a tin can with a barrel hopefully pushed in straight (a lot are not). Most don't accommodate optics, they're not able to be changed up like Legos and ammo isn't cheap anymore.
There's a whole lot of com bloc fans out there, I'm not one of them. I've owned some but all have been crude at best and scary at worst. It's like the mosin rifles, they were sub $100 for a long long time and I thought that was too much, just because guys are paying over $500 for the exact same guns now doesn't mean they're better, they just cost more. The benefit in the past was that you could buy a ton of ammo for dirt cheap, those days are gone. You'll see ARs used for target rifles, can't say the same for AKs, they're bullet hose rifles just made for sending bullets in a general direction which they do well but not much else. Modern American shooters expect some amount of precision , tough when you're dealing with something so rough with no way to properly mount optics. Yes, I understand some AKs have that side rail thing to put an optic mount on but it'll take some fiddling and you'll find the stock design not ideal for using optics so you'll likely be looking to change that too.
I might get some heat for telling the truth about commie guns but that's my reality, you're all welcome to have your own opinions. My opinion of AKs is that if they were a couple hundred bucks, sweet I'd have one or two. There's just now way I'd pay what they cost now, the absolute cheapest AR you can find will absolutely 100% shoot better- doubt anyone would argue that.
Then the ammo. If you have a stock of old ammo you got cheap you'll face possibly corrosive factors and berdan primed cases- probably steel too. You're not reloading that . if you get proper brass cased, boxer primed , noncorrosive ammo you'll pay as much or more than good 223 rounds. After 1 reloading you've eliminated all the savings the old commie ammo offered. There's just no situation in which the AK wins on any level.
I'm an open minded guy, if someone can educate me on something I'm missing please do.