I'm not a big fan of the AK, and IMO the SKS is far worse. My experience is a bit dated as I sold both off in the late 90s or early oughts. FWIW I guess I'm not really a huge AR fan, either, despite being a big lover "black rifles". No one wants 1/4 drill bit, they just want 1/4" holes. That's how I view rifles. Some I love on an emotional level but for the most part I just want to place a bullet where I want it to go. For me the AK makes most things I want to do more difficult than they need to be. It's a real PITA to mount on an optic on an AK, a step that is pretty much mandatory for me to be able to shoot a long gun well. I'm in my mid-fifties with astigmatism in my dominant eye and I need bifocals to read; this makes iron sights a complete non-starter for me in all but ideal situations. I dislike the mag catch and find the safety to be very non-ergonomic on the AK. I suppose most of my complaints apply equally to all battle rifles designed "back in the day" before lights and optics were the standard and the norm. And I suppose the concept of ergonomics was created well after WW2. For me any center fire long gun needs to have some ability to serve as a fighting gun so I consider a WML to be essentially mandatory. There are ways to mount one on an AK, same as an optic, but they're afterthoughts. While I'm not a passionate fan of the AR, it's designed to do everything I want a carbine to do, out of the box. My main knocks on the AR are the 90 degree throw on the safety (easy enough to change I guess) and the goofy charging handle which is much more awkward than side charging like my Bren or the charger-and-bolt-release system of an MP5 or Scorpion.
My particular AK was not every accurate, little better than my early Mini-14, and not particularly fun to shoot. I kind of like the 7.62x39 cartridge as I think it was a great achievement in compromise, balancing recoil with terminal effect and weight vs capacity. But there are plenty of other rifles nowadays if you want x39; I went with a PWS Mk116 Mod 1. While I love the rifle, recent developments (aka the bad actions of Russia leading to sanctions banning the importation of their ammo) has resulted in my main reason for liking the x39 to begin to evaporate- cheap steel ammo. More and more I find myself shooting .300 Blackout instead, and it has the advantage of far more and better commercial loadings vs the x39.
In summary I don't find much to like about the AK. For me it does a worse job at virtually everything I want vs other more modern carbines, and it actively works against the user. Maybe I'm just lazy but I prefer easy, off-the-shelf options for stuff like lights and optics, which are few and far between for the AK. But I don't have any real negative emotions for the AK, it's just that I've been there and done than and it didn't really do anything for me. Still, it's a rugged and reliable arm and I can see why others might like it, especially if they value different things than I do.
