Agree. RRA quality overall is mixed, OK, not awesome. But the LAR-8 is not the best .30 cal AR design, being extra, extra long to accommodate the mechanism for using FAL mags. It is long and clumsy, and on the heavy side.
Digging into old memories, I think the LAR-8 is simply an evolution of the Bushmaster BAR-10, where they sold the design and rights to RRA for their use. And the Bushmaster design was made to use FAL mags because it was thought up during the '94 AWB, so 20rd FAL mags were available and fairly cheap, while other designs were either expensive (M1A) or not readily available over 10rds (AR-10 style).
For nostalgia, there was also, briefly, a CMMG lower, compatible with a DPMS pattern upper, that used G3 mags. It never caught on.
Yes, but the DSA mags (their original steel design) are not consistently good or always identical to milsurp magazines in dimensions. However there are two other brands of new production FAL mags besides DSA: Moses and another I'm blanking on. I would check those out if I were trying various FAL mags. Whatever way you slice it I think you're looking at $20+ per magazine, which isn't awful but isn't cheap either.
EDIT: looks like the other polymer is another DSA design, and says it will NOT work with the LAR-8:
https://www.dsarms.com/p-17211-ds-ar...und-black.aspx
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