In the 90s-00s, the gun world was very different. As such, the AR-15 was still a relatively expensive rifle. People had them, but it was nothing like today where they're the most popular semi-auto rifle available with a huge aftermarket. This is where the whole thing about the SKS being an ideal survivalist rifle came from, because at the time the SKS was a very affordable and objectively good rifle for the money.

At the time, these polymer stocks made sense as you could effectively modernize a good, reliable rifle and add things like vertical grips, flashlights, even optics to it to make a decent combat weapon you could hold as you watch Nutnfancy SHTF WROL EOTWAWKI militia tactics videos, while drinking a Pepsi Twist and throwing darts at an Osama Bin Laden dartboard.

People hate on them now though for three reasons:

-They still associate them with the people who bought them because they couldn't afford an AR or AK, and thus they appear cheap or too tacticool. The notion of SKS' being cheap has gone away sadly, as it's rare to see them at gun shows for less than $900 now.

• As surplus SKS rifles dry up and prices raise, people stopped seeing them as inexpensive beater rifles, and instead, more as historical firearms that should be maintained and kept as close to factory configuration as possible. When you get rid of the wood stock and replace it with a Tapco one, it's seen less as modernizing and more like bubbaing something that was already good to begin with. It's not 2004 where you bought an SKS with all accessories for $100 and 800 rounds of bulk 7.62x39 for $50, so why ruin a vintage rifle when you could buy a PSA AR-15 for under $600?

• A lot of these stocks weren't that great to begin with, from bad ergonomics, compatibility issues, or the general perception that they're just inferior to the standard wooden stock. Some also were done with various magazine conversions which ranged from okay to constant failures to feed or mags falling out. In my experience they're all over the place. I used one that had a side folding stock that wasn't that bad and actually pretty usable, but I also handled one that had a stupidly heavy polymer rail system, and the stock sat at a weird angle.