My first joystick was probably made by the wanky spanky bondage company of Tiawan, but after that I have been using a MS sidewinder (PRO?). I bought it because friends had compatibility problems with other brands so I went for something that was going to be easy to install and well supported. As far as functionality goes, just read SC's post except it cannot be changed from RH to LH
. Does the job for me though.
I had the MS force feed back pro for a while which I bought cheap thanks to connections. It's well made etc but the forced feed back was really just a gimmick, so I sold it on. (No way is it worth it's retail price though).
At the end of the day, a joystick much like FS is just a toy, and it won't feel like you are flying the real thing except maybe if you select the 'scarebus'.