The staccato xc is sort of a meme designed for and marketed to people not in the know. Staccato, in the 2011 crowd, is known to be sort of the baseline maker of production quality guns... like "the cheapest gun I'd actually recommend to someone getting into the game". In fact, Staccato was once actually the budget line of guns for the company STI, which has since rebranded to Staccato and now ONLY sells the budget line of production guns.

This in and of itself doesn't present any glaring issues, and for most of their lineup, Staccato produces guns with quality commensurate to the price tag (ie: the P, C2, models) but the XC is different. The XC is priced at or just below CUSTOM/ SEMICUSTOM pricing, but you STILL only get a production quality gun. All you get for your money is a minimally effective comp (I say this because if you ever shoot a REAL open gun you'll see what actually effective comps and/or porting feels like) with a somewhat aesthetically pleasing shape that is flush fit with the dust cover and machined into the barrel. You'd get roughly the same (or better) performance with a threaded barrel and a larger comp threaded on to it. The bigger issue is that the gun has no functional use other than as a range toy. You can't shoot competition with it... the comp sucks too much to compete with the other open guns and you can't remove it so you're stuck in open. The light springing and the comp sort of preclude it from being the duty gun of choice, and its size and weight make it a pretty shit option for ccw. It's just a toy to impress people at the range with the caveat that anyone who is really into 2011's isn't impressed by it and instantly assumes you don't know what you're doing because you own one and forked over $4.5k for it instead of simply saving up an extra $500 and buying a REAL custom/semicustom quality gun. If the XC was $3 grand, or even $3.5k, like that new C4X carry gun they came out with... I'd be less egregious, but at its price tag, you're a glock away from a gun that's actually good and you chose to buy a meme.

My advice: Don't waste money on guns with integral flush fit comps. If you want an open gun... buy a full out open gun. Huge ass comp... maybe ported too... frame mounted optics.. the whole 9 yards. If you want a 3 gun style open gun with slide ride optics, at least fork out for something like an Atlas Erebus if you don't want (or can't afford) a full custom.

Otherwise, just buy a quality, limited style 2011 that doesn't have the comp gimmick. If you want a Staccato, get a P or C2 or one of the HD's if you care about drop safety. If you're poor, get on the waiting list for a platypus.... saves you some money and their build quality from what I've seen is pretty decent (their finishes suck though, paint it's an acceptable finish). I've heard conflicting and mixed reviews about the sig p211 so I'd personally stay away (plus you're overpaying for a flush minimally effective comp again).

Don't buy a "budget" 2011 like a tisas/mac/apollo13/name your budget brand. People buy 2011's for the shooting performance advantages and all of that goes out the window with the cheap shit (not to mention you get alot more lemons). Some of the non 2011 sao guns you mentioned are objectively better guns than the cheap 2011 crowd... like the Sig p226 xfives, or the cheap sao shadow 2's from cz. I'm personally not a huge fan of berettas in sao, but the traditional 92 souped up by langdon is probably the best you can do for da/sa and they're frequently on sale for about a grand.