I'm only looking for a reliable rifle;
Saiga is known to be very reliable out of the box. And, I've not heard of a Saiga semi-auto AK style rifle breaking. If that's your threshold, then you won't have any problem with a Saiga. My problem is that I've owned a Polytech stamped receiver AK - that's my base for comparing quality. If you completely disassemble a Saiga and a Polytech, look at the receivers and the parts, you can see and feel the difference. The Polytech Legends were even nicer (milled receivers), and if you compare those side by side with Arsenal, you will see that Polytech makes a nicer milled receiver rifle than Arsenal (which is a very nice AK).
Presently, the only AK I own is a Polish underfolder built on a DCI 1.5mm receiver with TAPCO fire control parts. All parts numbers (except TAPCO fire control parts) match and looked new (when I bought it) - it'll shoot any ammo all day long without a hickup and is accurate enough for an AK. However, the fit, finish, barrel thickness, bolt, bolt carrier, fire control parts, magazine and receiver thickness of the stamped Polytech is observably superior to my Polish underfolder.
The bottom line - I keep my eyes pealed for a nice stamped Polytech underfolder (with spiked bayonet and all the goodies) in the low 1,000's. If I happen to find a Legend that I can afford, then that would be ok too. My reason for saying all of this is because there are a lot of Saiga fans out there that think Saiga is the cream of the crop when it comes to AK's just because they are made in Russia. They're not. The Polytech AK's imported prior to '89 are the cream of the crop in my opinion. Of course, this is excluding variants like Galil, Valmet M-76 and others.