If he wants to turn down his bolt handle, it is his bolt handle. Tell your kids not to buy it from his kids 30 years from now, if it bothers you.
I have a friend that "destroyed" the value of an FR8 by having the bolt handle turned down.....of course it improved the handling and storage options on the rifle 100 percent. His rifle.....and yes I would buy it from him for a few bucks more than he has in it right now.
I thought "bubba-izing" was a good term a few years back when I saw it mainly applied to rifles that had been poorly modified with a hacksaw in the home shop and the stock wittled away to useless ness. I have a hard time thinking of having the bolt bent and stock relieved by a professional as Bubba-izing.
Still personally if this person wanted to wittle the stock back to VG-1 "sporter" profile and pianted gloss baby blue, shortened and have a inch thick red rubber recoil pad installed and cut back the barrel to 16.1 inches, install an original Johnson muzzle break and have all the metal tefloned flaming pink, remove the rear sight leaf and elevator and drop on a silver pistol scope on a scout mount and call it Mary......I might cry.....but it's his rifle.
"Having the bolt handle bent will make a straight bolt handled Mauser handle better. That's why the K98k has a bent handle."
I suspect that is the information he is looking for rather than judgement of his choice to do so.
One of the better shooting rifles I have seen was a shot out M98 that had been rebarreled. reciever tapped for a good scope mount and restocked with modern ideas. Does making changes to a "piece of Junk" to make it a good shooting, easy handling rifle consititue "Bubba-izing?"
-Bob Holingsworth