I have owned several (probably a dozen, or close to it) AT101s over the past 15 years, one was my daily driver for about 5 years when it came with a Dell system I got in about 1998. I have generally liked them, although some have been considerably better than others. A really good one is a very nice keyboard.
There has been considerable discussion on this forum, pro and con, and I was always surprised at how certain people seriously trashed the AT101.
I have transplanted blue and orange switches into an AT101 chassis, and it makes a wonderful keyboard - solid and smooth. Since the case is a bit ugly (and I usually like beige, it is probably the shape and logo) I have been looking for a black case. Beige keys look good in a black case, in my opinion, and presumably I would have a spare set of black ones, too.
So today I received the black keyboard, $30 shipped from ebay, a good deal for the scarce black model, and I was appalled at how horrible it feels! I tested it for the board, I will do another orange transplant so it does not matter, but these are truly - BAD - switches.
Now I know why someone would think that the AT101 is a really bad keyboard, if they got one like this they would have used it for 2 minutes and never wanted to touch it again.
If you are one of those people, don't write the AT101 off entirely until you have tried a good one.