Smilin_Ed said
One configuration was to have the stick (or yoke, I can't remember which) move large distances for small control surface movements but with little force required. The opposite configuration was to have the stick "locked in concrete" and all control surface movements responding only to stick forces. My instructor, Nello Infanti, asked which I preferred. I preferred minimal stick motion with aircraft response determined by stick forces. Nello informed me that the vast majority of pilots also preferred that configuration. I would think that, when finding it necessary to fly current FBW aircraft using the stick, that precise control would be more difficult using stick deflection rather than stick forces.
This is very fascinating and reminds me of riding a fast motorcycle. This is a subtle physico-mental thing that cannot be described, but is very instinctual for a experienced rider. There is no question in my mind that the airplane should respond to physical force so that a pilot can "feel" it in his own structure. There is probably a fancy medical word - is it proprioception? Astronauts in weightlessness lose track of their limbs unless they can see them. The lack of physical stress on the body divorces the mind from it in a very strange way. One astronaut experienced a strange glowing watch floating before his eyes while half-asleep in orbit, only to discover somewhat later that it was his own arm he was seeing.
The control input should match the physical stress of acceleration, because the pilot has to "feel" how to fly the airplane based on what it's doing to his body.