No weapon choice is going to please everyone because personal tastes/preferences/hand sizes, etc. are different. I greatly preferred the Berettas to the 1911A1's. Went from earning a pizza box annually to getting my expert badge. I know that plenty of people tinker with 1911's to make them more accurate/more ergonomic, but that option really doesn't exist for most people who are issued a stock weapon.
FWIW, the majority of the officers with whom I served in the 80's and 90's preferred the 92SF to the 1911a1 as well. Certainly not unanimous, but definitely a majority.
@Maj. Bill Martin Well,the sad,sad truth is most people in the US Military have no respect for handguns for anything other than as a badge of office or a paperweight. LOTS of issue 45's were kept in inventory long after they should have been rebuilt or scrapped,but the truth is even those clapped-out pistols that would rattle when you shook them were accurate enough for most legitimate purposes,namely keeping a bad guy off your back until you could grab up his rifle after killing him at close range.
In some units,like SF (infantry),and I am guessing armor,artillery, and MP units,I suspect the company armorers did a lot more rebuilding than was done in support units.
IMHO,the worse drawback to the 1911A1 was the army regulation that demanded you carry one in the issue full-flap holster with an empty chamber. As usual with large organizations,the rules were written by people with no experience in the field,and their eyes firmly on annual safety reports,where the CO's career is more important than the lives of the serfs under his command. I never asked,but now it occurs to me the army probably had a regulation demanding battle rifles normally be carried with an empty chamber,too.
Hell of a thing when commanders can't trust their own troops with loaded weapons.
