A new gun owner friend brought over his new TactiCool SKS for a quick lesson on field-stripping/cleaning his SKS. I brought mine out so I could demo while he worked on his. The first thing he said when he saw mine in the original Arctic Birch was "Wow, that's what they look like in person? I just thought they looked like crap on the website photos." Arctic Birch has one of the most fascinating grains for a gun stock, and it holds up well over time.
After going through all the motions of having to take the handle off his ATI stock to fully break it down etc., he was wishing he'd paid less and gotten a wood stock version instead by the end.
To each their own. My wife thinks my CZ 452 is by far my ###iest rifle. She's not wrong. But I'm not going to say she's right either. Every rifle is ###y is its own way - well, unless its all tactical plastic. Then it might look bad@ss and cool, but "###y" I reserve for wood stocks. Right now, I'm having a romance with my Mosin M44, but that will pass, there's always a new beauty to enjoy, or an old fling to go back to.
Ok, I should probably stop before that heads down the creepy ### analogy road too far.