Yeah, I have a set of those that I keep as "beater chisels" to loan out to people. As you say they're not horrible, but I don't think they're great either. The irons are also overly thick, so you'd still have that to deal with even after chopping off the handle.
Given what they did with the tang I'm surprised they didn't make the iron out of S7 or something like that. That "through tang" is a recipe for shock.