Personally, I never did get into the AR phenomenon, and up until a little over a year ago, I'd never shot one, either. Though I have been a couple of times near persuaded to acquire an AR, I never did, and now, most likely never will. I had the opportunity, and did, shoot one as I mentioned a little over a year ago, and I had the "green light" to clean out a 30 rd. magazine on a M4 carbine with a red dot sight on it. It was fun, but after about 15 rounds, I'd satisfied my curiosity on my own interest on an AR. I passed the rifle back to the owner, thanked him, and he went through the rest of the mag. We picked up the brass, and he put it away.
Since I believe you're not a hunter, this is just FWIW.
I do now own a .223 in a M700, ADL, and since it's legal to hunt deer and antelope in Wyoming with that caliber (60grn. bullet minimum restriction), I thought I'd buy one, and did. I reload, and have had more fun with that rifle; cheap to reload for, and no recoil. I have two M700s in '06 that are of the same platform as that .223, and other than the action length difference, all three rifles fit me almost exactly and as close as three different rifles could fit someone (all operating features the same, and all the triggers are set fairly equal, too). Needless to say, I can shoot that .223 pretty much all day, where either of those two '06s, a dozen or so rounds are most times quite enough to sit and shoot with at the bench.
My .223 is quite accurate for an "out of the box" factory rifle, and I'd have no problem hunting a whitetail with it, keeping the range under 200 yds. Had the Wyoming G&F not legalized the .223 for big game, I most likely never would have bought into that caliber. I'm glad I can hunt deer with it if I choose, and I'm glad it's been so much fun to shoot, easy to reload for, and as I've mentioned, quite accurate. Seems these days the .223 is chambered in a bolt gun from all the firearms manufacturers, so one has the choice of many. I really like my Remington, trigger and all, but I believe if I was to buy another, I'd probably go with the standard Ruger American.