[color=cc9900]mik, I can see you're one of the die-hard sorts, so I won't continue arguing to save your wallet. My only point, for anyone else listening, is that for $80, the Saitek X45 is bloody good value compared to practically any other joystick on the market, given that it has almost the same amount of features as something that costs around $269. Hell, if it's a shed-load of features you want, get a Saitek and a $5 keyboard, then you'd be laughing all the way to the bank. In the unlikely event that the Saitek breaks, then you've still got enough money left for two more and a little pocket change besides. I don't see how you can argue the other way around on value.
Um, about the programmability thing, I haven't even tried to do most of the things you've listed, but I do know one thing for sure - with a little button press, you can change the axes to do something else. So your research is questionable. And anyway, what kind of crazy games are you playing that need that many features? I struggle to find enough things to fully map onto the Saitek in any game I have as it is, and that's without even playing around to a massive degree with programmability.
And, using your modder's analogy, if it was my own money that got me Lightwave, I wouldn't bother. I'd stick with Truespace, Milkshape, Blender, whatever. Better to be ingenious with functions (I barely scratch the surface with Lightwave's featureset to achieve what I want, I don't trust most of the features to do it for me) than to be out of pocket for the next 5 years (on my scale).[/color]
