Everybody praises and loves the MAX run (and so do I!), but Knights had so much dark humor and fun. I love both series, and own all 3 Omnibus. Some of my favorite Marvel stuff!
I think the only true difference was MAX allowed Ennis full creative freedom to go dark and violent as much as he wanted with zero restrictions where Marvel Knights, he was being careful even though that was pretty dark and violent itself for Marvel. My favorite Punisher story by Ennis would be Born. Never read anything like it :)
I love the Marvel Knights run in it's own right because of it's sense of humour and simplistic yet dark take on the Punisher and I think there's something to be said for the way Ennis was able to implement his mature and violent style in a mainstream comic.
he brought the punisher and nick fury to life , marvel never did any good war comics , DC was and is the king of conflict but marvel had a few good side characters and ennis kicked the dust off them and breathed new life