Agreed with this. AI's are great units, and truly the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts.
AI's have created a reputation of extreme reliability, a lot of rhetoric around their reliability. That reputation extends to 5+ years ago, when the quality of custom rifles and their components were no where near where they are at today. There used to be a big dichotomy between the reliability of an AI and a custom rifle - there's a great Steel Safari YouTube video from many moons ago that highlights the poor reliability of past customs in poor/adverse conditions, while the AI's kept running. My first precision rifle, a GAP Crusader in 6.5 creedmoor, was no where near as reliable as an AI. Thankfully custom rifles and their components have increased in quality drastically over the last few years, and paired with a good gunsmith, customs are pretty much every bit as reliable as an AI these days. And yes, I've seen numerous AI's fail in competition, so from my anecdotal experience, the reliability gap is razor thin these days.
An AI rifle is designed as a "one size fits most". It's the suit hanging on the rack. The sleeve pitch may be off, the shoulders a little too wide, the suit may bunch up a bit in the front and create the subtle dreaded "X" when the top button is done up, but it fits - mostly. Maybe you're lucky and it's even a perfect fit. But you need to try them to find out. If certain parts of the system don't work for you, well you just have to deal with it as the system comes as is.
A custom rifle is like a tailor made suit - but there's a big caveat. You need to know exactly what you want in a rifle, use quality components and have a good gunsmith put it together (or at least do the barrel work). My current custom rifles fit me perfectly. But my PRS rifle for example, took 3 iterations to get there. That's a lot of time and capital. Thankfully, for those that are starting out in the custom rifle market today, the options are much better than when I got into the game. I would put my custom rifle as it currently sits over an AI 10 times out of 10, and I know it's pretty much just as reliable as any AI. I would also argue that there is a better precision potential with a well made custom gun over an AI in stock form - but AI's shoot really good as is and most shooters wouldn't be able to shoot the difference. And, whenever you need to rebarrel an AI, you can go the custom gunsmith route with a premium blank and have a rifle every bit as precise as some of the best customs.
AI rifles don't fit me well. I hate the ergos, and I'm not a fan of the trigger. They are great quality, and great systems. If that's what you want and it fits you, then it's certainly hard to go wrong.
