I still use a Logitech Force 3D as my primary joystick. It's somehow managed to stay working well despite fairly heavy use over 10+ years. I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority because I've heard plenty of people complaining about this one.
They don't sell the force feedback version anymore but
this is otherwise identical to it and still makes a pretty good entry-level joystick. Comfortable, responsive, lots of buttons, generally decently durable.
I have it combined with the
CH Throttle for a full HOTAS setup, which works ok for me now.
Eventually I want to replace the joystick and get some pedals, but it just hasn't happened yet. And sadly as the years go on it seems there's fewer and fewer options in the joystick business. Apparently flight sims aren't profitable.
Sadly, in order to get these both working in FSO, you need a 3rd party program to wrap both joysticks into a single device, because SDL 1.1 can't detect more than one device at once. While that's an ok workaround, those programs can't map analogue sticks from the second device, so that nice little thumb stick on the throttle gets ignored. It's one of the reasons I'm really looking forward to the switch to SDL2, which can natively detect multiple joystick devices.