With a number of games here requiring joysticks, or likely playing better with them, I though I'd ask a simple question. What are your favorite joysticks? In the spirit of maintaining a list, the first post will be updated to contain the recommendations.

Current Winner
Thrustmaster T-16000M (3 votes) - 16 button; ambidextrous; MSRP $49.99

Other Options
Thrustmaster T-Flight Hotas X (2 votes) - 12 button; right-handed; UK 39.99
Speedlink Black Widow (1 vote) - 8 button; right-handed; UK 32.49
Saitek Cyborg 3D USB (1 vote) - 10 button?; ambidextrous; not widely available
Speedlink Competition Pro (1 vote) - 4 button; ambidextrous; not widely available
Logitech Extreme 3D Pro (0 votes) - 12 button; right-handed; MSRP $39.99

To make this fair for everyone, I'll try to make sure every entry is categorized for a left-handed, right-handed, or ambidextrous configuration.

Disclaimer: Those marked not widely available have no direct US option on Amazon. Those marked UK do have direct options on Amazon.co.uk. The MSRP and UK prices do not reflect the current pricing available.

I vote for Thrustmaster T.16000M.

http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/04/review-thrustmaster-t16000m-joystick/

The only flaw is its stupid name. T.16000M, what the heck? Is it supposed to mean something, the latest Terminator killer robot from the future or something? Why is there a period, and is that "M" referring to "mobile", like NVidia Geforce GTX 880M is the mobile laptop version of that GPU? EDIT: Ok apparently the 16000 does mean something, like "16000 control states per axis", which I presume is supposed to be pretty awesome and impressive. I guess I should be thankful it isn't called T.10M instead (unless M stood for "million").

Hard to remember, when I went to buy mine, I told the clerk "I want that Thrustmaster flightstick which has lots of digits in its name and something else.... There was a six and lots of zeroes.".

Then again, I have hard time remembering the name of some of my older MS flightsticks too, like Microsoft Sidewinder Precision Pro 2, or something like that. Why didn't they add Deluxe Superior 3D Ultimate into the name as well, just to add more superlatives?

Competition pro. Black and red, old amiga design. Got mine from a german online shop for about 30 eur, shipping included. Of course converted to pc compatible usb using devil.
Not good for games that require lots of buttons and well new school driving games could be harder.
Although got some medals in Race Driver Grid. But for those who want to experience a piece of history.
Great for 2D.

I think it is pretty useless for PC games expecting analog sticks.

That's what I disliked about Amiga, playing games like Elite, Test Drive or Falcon F-16 with a digital stick. It was a whole new world when I switched to PC gaming, and suddenly driving and flying games had much more precise analog controls. I recall how astonished I was how much simpler and more natural e.g. manual docking was in Elite Plus (PC version), compared to the Amiga version I played for many weeks with a digital stick. Suddenly matching your rotation speed with the station felt pleasant.

I'm pretty happy with my old Saitek Cyborg 3D USB stick, the black version, not the gold one.

The last two sticks I bought, were utter disasters. They were cheap but I expected them to fulfill the most basic requirements for old space combat sims. They didn't. The first one was the Speedlink Wasp², the second one was the Gembird JSK-420 which looked promising but ended up being even worse. Stay clear of these two!

A stick people keep recommending and that I'm going to buy next is the Thrustmaster T-Flight Hotas X. It's a lot more expensive than my last two (which cost less than half of this one) but going by the reviews it's an extremely good stick at a very affordable price. You can also disconnect the the throttle control if you want to save some space on your desk which sounds like a huge plus to me (although I presume that it has a lot more grip with the additional weight of the throttle control).

I have Thrustmaster T.16000M. I like it. I don't use it nearly enough though.

Are you referring to your penis?

That too :)

Speedlink Black Widow or Thrustmaster T-Flight Hotas X

Very good, especially for the money they cost.

I had an USB Competition Pro or two that I got ages ago, but they seemed to have noticeable input lag for some reason. Also the stick came off from one of them, but now that I dag it out it appears I have fixed it somehow. I wonder if they're less durable than they originally were or if I'm just stronger than I used to be. Although hmm.. maybe I never even had one, just a somewhat similar Zipstik, but at least that one is still fine, but I prefer a TAC-2 for most things that don't require autofire. Of course these are not the sticks that you want for the recent games.

I haven't really played anything much that requires an analogue stick. I have a Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro. I understand that once upon a time this stick had some sort of a cult following, but perhaps new sticks are better now. What makes a good stick? This one is also for the gameport, which is an obstacle to most people.

Another vote for the T.16000M, it's the most durable and accurate joystick that can be bought for under $50,-.

There are bound to be mistakes, but the main post has been updated. Keep your suggestions incoming!

After I bought some space & flightsims here I was thinking maybe I should also get a joystick, which means I check threads like this from time to time for recommendations. It seems the Thrustmaster T16000M is still the preferred choice of most for a good beginner stick. Good that the joystick is still around, next time I feel the need to play something with spaceflight I will maybe get one ;-)

Also relevant for some other lefthanded guys, you can easily modify the stick to play with the left and right hand. That seems not very common with many joysticks in that price-area.

I've been eyeing the CH Products CombatStick for a while now. About $100, which explains why it isn't already sitting on my desk.