M14 was a dumb choice to adopt as a service rifle but for personal use it's fun and not going to be much worse in terms of performance than any other mainstream battle rifle. If you're just after practical choices then you're going to get an AR10 and like it.
If you want something that's fun to shoot and "accurate enough" out of the box then any m14 clone is fine. People almost exclusively get battle rifles for fun and I'll never understand people trying so hard to shit on any of them.
You linked an article covering its service history but that's not really relevant here.
@Iceland Heavy
If you want it, get it. I've never shot a Scout Squad but everything I've read says it's pretty much just a shorter M1A with comparable performance. If you find m14 haters, they'll sperg about it having an unreliable action and being inaccurate or something but no one I've ever known or seen who actually owns one has agreed yet they all agree it's a relative pain in the ass to clean thoroughly and is certainly a rifle of a bygone era in terms of design. I think the "tack driver" fuddlore comes from the irons being so nice compared to what you normally expect, actual performance is on par with a PTR91 or FAL clone as far as I can tell, but the ceiling is higher if you enjoy projects and hate money.
Pros
muh aesthetics, wide support, springfield warranty is good, fun to shoot, easy to maintain, awesome irons
Cons
Cold barrel can throw flyers (usually just first shot), accuracy autism gets expensive, mounting sights sucks, kinda pricey, front heavy, expensive steel mags