The only reason I'd rather stray from MSE than Avast is the fact that from Vista and up, it's included in most versions. The reason that's important is malware begins to become customized for it. Not so much in the resistance department, but you generally see a lot more things "masquerading" as something related to the popular AV software out there, and unaware PC users may end up downloading and running something they think is totally safe. And when it comes packed in an OS, there's a very large chance that authors of malware are going to target that sort of thing.
So, effectiveness aside, there's probably a greater likelihood of someone introducing malware onto their system if they're using the most likely anti-malware system, versus using something comparable but not so much in the spotlight.
For that reason alone, users that aren't very "in the know" in regard to computer security should generally opt for equally effective 3rd party AV software, especially if they aren't planning on being vigilant about what they do, despite the promise of being "protected".
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