I'm trying to be optimistic about it. I like that they are going somewhere new with controllers. Already I can imagine those Y and B buttons not being easy/natural to get to. and of course not having at least one actual joystick is going to throw me off. (I game a lot with my Macbook Pro and I've gotten very very good with the mac trackpad, but I still like my WASD keys for the left hand). But again, all of these are my own issues and I'm very much willing to give this joystick a shot.
I was a bit disappointed until I read the bit about hardware hack-ability. Accessibility in games is an oft ignored topic. The open nature of these controllers will hopefully lead to more games being playable by disabled gamers as people extend the hardware. Of course, the flip side of that coin is people modifying the controller to gain an unfair advantage.
Very true! When it releases, I may try to use data from an Eye Tribe (http://theeyetribe.com/) to drive the right trackpad output. The added cost seems like a valid deterrent against people just trying to cheat, and a bearable cost for someone who wants to play games but is incapable of using a traditional controller.
If you look at the sample controller mapping, you might note that all the abxy buttons are mapped to communication functions, so I'd say they aren't intended to be natural to get to (much like the start button on other gamepads).
The ergonomic buttons like the triggers and rear buttons are best for actions you need to perform while moving. There's six of those in total. Compare to WASD and a common 3-button mouse setup: the mouse buttons, shift/ctrl, and the easy-to-reach keys 1234EQZXCF. So yeah, you won't have as many quick-reach keys available to you. I would grade the keyboard keys as a bit harder to reach though because you have to take fingers off movement to hit them.
