I'm sure I will get but shoot a Mosin, Arisaka, a Mauser or even an Enfield and they just do not compare. Don't take this the wrong way I own and enjoy some of them but for the time the M1 was completely in a class of its own and was for a while.
The capacity (small by today's standards but 8 vs 4/5 in most cases), reloading (clip vs stripper), rate of fire (semi auto vs bolt), and what I think gets looked over the most the sights. You can teach a new shooter to use M1 sights very quickly and they can be pretty accurate at distance.