Of course this is just my own experience, and YMMV…
My first go with the MK1 was not fruitful.
When they say the MK2 is more intuitive, there’s a lot of truth in that.
Once I got the MK2, I was able to fully understand the OT, it’s facilities, and the MK2’s easier access of those facilities helped quite a bit. It made getting from point to point faster, and that inspired me to explore the OT more and more.
Unfortunately I had to sell my MK2 for financial reasons, and several months later found myself needing an OT again but only affording the MK1. I went with a used MK1 and fortunately the things I kept in my brain from my successful go with the MK2 stuck, and made the less intuitive MK1 interface easier to manage.
I guess the moral to my story is the MK1 is fine but you really have to understand what the OT can do, why those capabilities are arranged in the ways they are arranged, and how to live without the dedicated buttons and added faceplate texts of the MK2.
If you can navigate those challenges, the MK1 is a tremendous value.
After years of playing live without it, and then playing live with it for over a year, I can’t imagine not having it.
For people considering a MK1 over a MK2 as a first time OT purchase, I think there is some value in going backward by looking at how the MK2 interface is different, and finding out how to access those same features and functions on the MK1. “If this button does this on the MK2, and it isn’t on the MK1, how do I get to that same destination on the MK1?”, maybe make a small card with these notes on it for the first couple months of use.