After owning a couple of standard Minis and trading them off, I bought a Ranch Rifle a few years ago and have not regretted it. I don't think much of the standard Mini front sight anyway (the stainless version being really hard for me to pick up), so the relatively crude flip up rear doesn't much bother me... although I am tempted to enlarge the aperture slightly. If I wanted to use irons, I'd get the - admittedly not cheap - XS Sight Systems front/rear 24/7 set that has the tritium front post.
There are a handful of other good replacement rear sights now, Brownell's offering a couple of them. A GI M-1 Carbine sight can also be adapted, but it is something of a craftsman's task.
Originally, my intention was to put a good 4x scope on my Mini-14 permanently, but the scope came back off pretty fast; this carbine really comes alive with a Millett red dot (or similar aiming device), the penalty being a very slight loss of handiness. The little bugger is certainly not a match gun, but it does shoot better than my earlier Minis (it also tosses the empties a LONG way out to the right and forward).
