Alright... I went out in left field, I'll admit it.
My 1911 had a soul... a soul black as coal, it was evil and dark and angry, mad too.
And good lord it hated 10 round magazines, with a firestorm of passion.
Alright, What I'd say is the Glock had no personality, it wasn't unique, it wasn't hip, it wasn't happening. It was talking Jive. Mad. Jive.
All joking aside.
What I'm trying to say is there's an intangible element of endearment that the gun just doesn't have for a lot of people. It contributes to a joyless and lackluster experience. They're neat because they meet expectation and are fairly reliable.
I probably will never be able to satisfactorily quantify what I'm trying to express this gun lacks, but
whatever *it* is. It lacks it. I don't have the feeling of ownership or personal property associated with the Glock like I did the Dan Wesson. Feels like I bought a Honda Accord of guns to lend back to the original example. When people look at it you say "Eh, it does what I need it to do well, it's affordable, and plentiful."
What I contribute this to is, I really think Gaston Glock, the furniture manufacturer from Austria, looked at a gun, and said "Let's industrial engineer this", lightened it with the most modern (at that time) materials, developed the highest capacity magazine they could in a full size frame, put a polygonal barrel in it, in the NATO Caliber, borrowed from every design what they thought was useful and tried to develop it to be mass produced at the lowest price.
(ETA 2: and they did it, in 90 days, which, hats off to them, but, something like say the HK P7, was just simply put innovative, was it over ambitious and overly complicated? Sure. 1911, was a modern wonder gun when it came out, you could detail strip the thing with a .45 ACP Cartride, it was a semi-auto, and it was a cut down .45 Colt, it was a wild thing with a thumb safety and a grip safety for cavalry, it was innovative and just different, they were ambitious. The Glock looks like they said "What are the most established known technologies? How can we augment that to make manufacturing/design more efficient?" But, they weren't pushing the envelope, that's how I see it anyway. Again, don't lose any sleep over it. I didn't think I'd have to really dive into this "soul", "character", "identity" thing like I've had to. The term like building a better mouse trap come to mind, they tweaked things, etc.)
Is that wrong? No, it's just a gun. It just kind of reminds me of a Model-T Ford, kind of fills that same "we make one car, in one color" niche.
Don't you all dare act like I'm weird. I'm not the only one owning this "soul" thing.
ETA: When I was a young lad, it reminds me of the days I loved 1911 lore deeply. There was a saying, people who are issued guns get Glocks, people who like guns buy 1911's, or something to that effect. Maybe this resonates with people, maybe it doesn't. It's been entertaining though.