Yes, it's still better for what it was originally designed for.
A conscripited army of peasants whose knowledge of machines consists of ox and plow and the most horrendous battlefield conditions known to man.
The rifle must work, it must work in a gawdawful enviroment, it must work with no maintainence or repairs, it must be simple enough for a peasant farmer to understand and operate with minimal training and it must be cheap so when he throws it down and runs away, or gets killied by the hundreds of thousands by a smaller but vastly superior army, the government won't be out much money. Besides being cheap, it must be easy and fast to manufacture.
Thus was born the AK-47, and it was carried one step further with the AKM. Considering the design requirements, it's not surprising it's been around so long, there will never be a lack of the type of soldier needing a weapon like the AK. Look around the world, most of the people you see holding an AK probably couldn't keep an AR running more than a month. Some of them can barely keep an AK running.