I'd argue that you don't need interesting guns if your basic offerings are really high-quality. There's room for "plain oatmeal" in pretty much any market.

The problem is that even their basic offerings have drastically declined in quality. If you make plain oatmeal, you'd better be really, really good at it, or else you have absolutely nothing going for you.

Exactly. This is Glock. Plain as it gets but they just work (TM).

And their quality has plummeted the past few years. I had an AK that could out-shoot my Rem 700 no matter what I did to it, and my 870 would only reliably eject Remington brand shells. Sold both, will never buy Remington again. Really a shame. Both of those were excellent guns back in the day.

That's sad. The 870 used to be the AK of shotguns. I beat that that gun like it owed me money and it kept cycling and shooting fine. The 700 used to be weapon of choice for many snipers. Hard to imagine today.

Not all (current) 870's are even created equally. The cheap one at a cabela's and a police model from a gun store are totally different leagues.

Almost all snipers in the US military today are still using a some Remington 700.

The Mk13 which is expected to replace the Marine's scout snipers M40 is 700-pattern, just not built by Remington.

You're going to be right soon, just not yet.

Likewise, "The Military" is still using Rem 870 and Mossberg 500 shotguns. The "other military" that is, the IRS, Deptartments of Interior, Energy, Education, and everything else; their SWAT teams all use the Rem 700 and 870.

They haven't switched to Accuracy International sniper specific rifels - the classic British two guys in a shed company.

It's a miracle the AWP got into Counter Strike. Either the design is so striking that it advertises itself or people-in-the-know recommended it. You'd think they'd use a Barrett as the "big ol' rifle" 3D model.

The Mk13 isn’t an AI. The ya a 700 letters Stiller with an AI AX chassis. And yea, I wrote they haven’t switched.