I've followed the arguments about the Scout concept since Cooper first publicized his ideas. My problem with the negatives is that most of them are about personal preference, rather than the physical or technical.
Several things that Cooper said that a lot of folks ignore: A "scout" is not a person seeking combat, but rather one seeking information as to what's going on in the surrounding country side. That holds whether one is involved in hunting either people or Bambi. In so doing, a scout avoids being seen or heard.
This gets to the weapon: Light and handy. Well, seven pounds fully dressed is good. One meter in length is good. (Same as my Sako Forester .243 carbine.) A sighting system allowing for very rapid acquisition of a sight picture if necessary. A ghost-ring peep sight or a forward-mounted scope fulfills this.
Cartridge? Sure, lots of reasonable differing opinions, here, but IMO the .308 is a very good all-around cartridge. And Cooper's idea was real heavy on "all-around".
Cooper was not a fan of shooting at long range nor via offhand at distances much past 100 yards. I say this from reading about some of his west Texas hunting for Aoudad in the Davis Mountains. Thus the scope magnification of some 1.5 to 5 is quite reasonable. The idea of a bipod, if it doesn't impact the total weight, makes sense.
So, overall, for what Cooper envisioned, his final design concepts make very good sense.
Steyr was the only manufacturer to initially show interest. (Savage came along later with their less-expensive version. Johnny Guest has one. I shot it a time or two. It works; it's just not my deal. But, he likes it, which is far more important.) IMO, the Steyr product is about as ugly as home-made sin built by unskilled labor. However, it does work, as was proven at Gunsite many times in rifle competition and in various hunts about which Cooper wrote.
It's like anything else in our happy little world of rifles: That which suits you and meets your needs is good. Those outside your own parameters should be unimportant to you. What I think oughta be important to you is that the other fella is happy with his "strange critter".
Life is real easy if you let it be...
, Art