Good comments, I agree completely with you on the Garand, it won WWII with its rate of fire and 30.06 round, just that nasty ching when the ammo clip popped out. Japanese and Germans never matched us until the Sturmgewehr.
The M-14 was underrated and never got the opportunity to evolve, like the M16 did. Had the M-14 gone through the design evolution that the M16 experienced, who knows what would have transpired. The M-14, incidentally, did away with the M-1 Garand “ping” due to its detachable box magazine.
Something else that never gets mentioned: The Israeli Defense Forces replaced their domestically manufactured Galil, which has the Kalashnivov action, with the M-16. AK fans claim the decision was purely economic, but I remember reading that the IDF put the two rifles through head to head tests and found the M-16 to be more desirable. They had no problem with its reliability evidently.
Incidentally, my admiration for the M-16 does not extend to the M-4 Carbine, which, from all accounts, has reliability problems stemming from its short barrel, which causes the gas system problems. I think the M-4 is a mistake.