I am not a fan of the Makarov, had one sold it to a friend who needed one down in Arizona in his home. You can get a 9x19 about the same size, why bother with a handgun in 9x18 caliber..
Well, for one, value. You can get a cz-82 for under $200 these days, which is a ridiculous value. Excellent trigger, polygonal rifling, ambidextrous controls, dead reliable, easy as hell to field strip and clean (admittedly, a bitch to detail strip), (relatively) high cap, (usually) comes with 2 mags, and (usually) comes with a pretty decent duty holster and mag pouch.
What "modern" gun can you buy for under $200? A hi-point? LOL. The cz is an infinitely better gun, a proven design that's still carried today by some czech troops.
Actual makarovs run about $230 these days, but I challenge you to find me a gun even half as tough for $230. For the person on a very tight budget, who can probably only afford one gun for a long time, and wants something they can both carry and use for HD, I think the makarov itself is a great choice.
PA-63's are about $150 these days. Admittedly, you do need to spend about $15 in new springs for them to be usable, but once you do that, they're pretty decent little carry guns. They're really nicely made too. Hold a PA-63 next to another PP variant, like a Bersa, and you can see the different in quality. No offense to the Bersa (hey, I own one), but the PA-63 makes the Bersa look and feel like a cheap chinese made sold in walmart copy (the Bersa does have a better trigger by far though, can't argue with that).
And, yeah, beyond value, as some have pointed out, there's just something cool about owning and collecting milsurp pistols. On the topic of collecting.... $2,000 can get you a pretty nice collection of the 9x18 guns.