If not tools, what do you view them as? I always thought they were tools... Sometimes toys I suppose.
Bottom line, like you said not everyone has a lot of money to spend on a rifle. And equally some people don't know or care about the finer points of firearms, they might just want to be able to hunt affordably. Advising a new buyer to look at other options is one thing...
But some people seem to be making this a mission in this thread, to criticize people for owning one, and it comes off as arrogant and snobbish to drag somebody else's choices through the mud because it's not the choice they would have made. Are there better guns than the axis for the money, probably, but who cares? It works, it puts rounds down range the same as any other gun. So what if it doesn't have a hammer forged barrel and immaculate fit and finish?