About fighting games...some people ARE better with the D-pad than Joystick. However a majority of people do use the joystick when playing most fighting games. Its easier for most people to execute moves. However i know some people are still better with D-Pad as much as i myself cannot use properly to do advanced moves consistantly.

The PS2 controller is just a big ripoff on the SNES one. In which case i like the controller only if it was a little more huge in a way, sometimes it felt too compact. Controller designing is varying and very different...so far i feel the SNES one works best overall many for many games. The GC one also works well too(except fighting games...go GC-ism -_-). I feel it should be comfortable, in which the GC controller does well. However buttons need to be placed good as well for overall gameplay and i feel that SNES ones does that the best. D-Pad or stick...doenst matter...long as you have both somewhere easily accessible. I hate switching over to my analog stick for some crazy ass move but screwing up because that split second of me switching to the stick (because its too hard to do on pad) and back.