I said it was dumb, it's also not entertaining.
The great panic strikes in 2012 or whatever, not wanting to be left out I tell my wife M&P9 or G17 your choice, we need a "high capacity" 9mm.
She picks the 17, I'm happy with that cause it's kinda ubiquitous and immediately consider it an addition to the collection on account of its status as the first mainstream polymer, mass PD issue, world wide military service, etc. I have a slight interest in acquiring samples of such guns without regard to true collectability. "Collection" status means won't be hacked up or sold, worn out is ok. I start shooting 2-gun, join a range, and 9mm is way cheaper than 45, so shoot it some wife does too.
A couple years pass and the FIL writes the wife a check "for whatever pistol she wants" I don't know the amount or care. She starts going on and on about Glocks, ugh. 9mm is the only option cause she's recoil adverse as they come, I practically beg her to get a 19, making the pretty reasonable argument if you hate it we'll "trade", cause we sure don't need two "identical" pistols. So we look around and eventually see the man at Backwoods Bang Shop and get her a 17, ugh.
Life goes on, I start shooting USPSA in production cause I'm cheap and now have a gun sorta suited to the division, so we're running 4/500 rounds a month on a good month thru it, dry firing a lot, and noticing some things. After a year the wife's goes under the knife gets a RDS milled in, cause she liked when we tried one on a dovetail mount and they make shooting accurate easier, I start shooting carry optics.
Why I don't like them, my first polymer pistol was a Walther P99AS, I loved it and I gave it away, I have compared everything else I've shot (not a lot) to it and been disappointed. First indication that the hype was just that, the widely acclaimed as impervious "frying pan" finish bloomed rust sitting in the safe with blued guns that didn't rust a bit with the same oily cloth wipe down and same or more time passed. When I really started shooting them a lot I found my wrists started hurting severely if my elbows are pointed down at all, product of my wrists and the grip angle, I can get away with some bend with other guns. Finger grooves are dumb, callouses cracking and tearing off the side of my middle finger are not enjoyable. Two "identical" pistols can have dramatically different trigger pulls. There must be spotty QC on the stamped pieces, one gun had jagged and not anywhere near square contact areas, it worked like that, but I'm not convinced it would've continued to. Fanboys, I've been told by people that never saw it mine didn't rust, the "sear" surface grinding a groove half way across the striker foot either didn't happen or is fine, and I somehow caused the jagged ring around the pin hole in the slide lock/catch/release or whatever they're calling it today.
What I like, they're pretty cheap, parts are plentiful and cheap, they're reasonably accurate, very simple, with a recoil spring change they're pretty hard for the user to induce malfunctions. I find it is probably the easiest handgun to give to the inexperienced and get reasonable results for whatever reason.
Why I don't get something else? I'm cheap, I don't use it for SD/HD so I don't think it's important. I decided to give a G17 status and not sell it very early on (full disclosure I never sell guns), so there it sits stripping me of reason to buy another 9mm at least as long as I feel I suck at shooting matches and may quit any day.
