For the longest time I played only with keyboard/mouse. I've got a joystick now, but I still need the mouse for long-range shots. The problem is the stick's too noisy to be set to zero-deadzone effectively... despite the Logitech software that will let me tweak the joystick settings directly.
...If there would be one neat piece of hardware to have for FS... it would be a custom-configured external numpad. Slave all the comm functions to it and you'd have a much easier time! It would be quite cool to build a full-scale FS cockpit console; makes me think of a thread a while back where they were putting FS in a VR environment... can't remember which one it was though...
It's in the code forum, the guy who spoke to me about it still wants to do it but for the most part it'd be up to us(and by us, I mean the coders) to get it done I think, well, most of it anyway.
I would suggest you guys who think joysticks are superior and required come play some multi ;p
For those of you that prefer it, I've found quite a few people end up complaining (if they're not hyper competitive anyway) that they end up extremely tired after a good tvt.
Meanwhile us keyboard users have barely inserted any physical effort, just a lot more judgement and skill.
'Course, I similarly swap over to the mouse for extreme-range maxim de-turreting and stuff.