I had a Mini from 2001 until the end of last year. It was my project gun I bought during the Clinton AWB because $1100 for a neutered AR was out of my price range. I actually sold it to buy G19 #2 because I just wasn’t using it since I had a couple ARs. I say it was a project gun, it had a trigger job, had the barrel cut to 16” and threaded for AR flash hiders. The new Minis have all these features plus better sights and you can buy factory 20 rd mags for about $30. Since they couldn’t be sold to the public during the AWB, factory Mini-14 mags were about $125 each. To this day people still bitch about the Mini being inaccurate and it being hard to find good mags. That was 10 years ago. My Mini shot as well as my 16” ARs.
Yeah if you're looking at a new Mini, Arsenal AKs are damn good AKs in a similar price range.