I sought out and bought a K1000 for myself. here's a few reasons why:
1. Fully manual. The K1000 has a serious reputation as the perfect learning camera. As I wanted one in order to learn photography, rather than take pretty pictures without having to think, it seemed like the obvious choice. The fact that it does next to no hand-holding is a big plus.
2. Reliability. K1000s also seem to have a reputation for extreme reliability, due to their horizontal-travel fabric shutters and the fact that there's just not much in them to break.
The reputation of the camera in everything I read pointed to the fact that it had these 2 things going for it. Add to that I could use my dad's ME Super lenses, and could get a Pentax DSLR later on and keep using the same lenses, I was sold
Now, once I get better with photography and don't need the K1000 to teach me anymore, I may seek out a K2 or even a later-model AF film body to go in my bag with my K10D.