I'm back! I spent most of yesterday evening playing games with it, trying various genres. Good news is that it works fine with GOG games, but I haven't figured out a way to customize the input when not playing through Steam. There may be a way and I just haven't found it, but if I don't run the game through Steam then it sticks to its default mouse/keyboard setup. Fortunately, adding games to Steam for play is trivial so it didn't stop me from customizing it, and oh my gosh is it customizable. EVERYTHING you could want to customize it for, it allows you to. The touchpads can emulate mice, keyboard, joystick, gamepad, whatever.
On the ergonomics side of things, it' s going to take getting used to. At the end of the night my thumbs were getting tired. It reminded of me when I started using a trackball at work, at first I couldn't do it all day but now that those muscles are worked out, I can go all day without stopping. The odd shape of the controller actually helps raise your thumbs above the touchpads so that you're making contact with them with the tips of your thumbs, not the flats, This ended up not being uncomfortable for me at all, other than the aforementioned getting tired.
Turns out the lower shoulder buttons are variable triggers that have a two-stage activation. You can pull the trigger almost all the way and it'll provide a little resistance at the end, and then pull it farther and it makes a light click. The idea is apparently for game with iron sights. Rather than hold another button to aim via iron sights, you partially pull the trigger to aim, and then pull it all the way to fire. This actually works pretty naturally, I'm surprised no one has tried it sooner. The two bottom buttons are wonderful and I hope they become standard on all controllers in the future, though I did have trouble with accidentally activating them when I had y hands with the controller in my lap. I'm sure that'll stop with time, but the benefits of those bottom buttons far outweighs getting used to them.
So, the real question: how does it perform in games? Depends on the game. First game I played with it was Sin Episode 1, which is an FPS based on the source engine. I used the default setup of emulating a trackball with the right touchpad, and WADS with the joystick. This particular experience went a little strangely, since the game is 100% designed for only mouse and keyboard. Aiming quickly is something that will take getting used to, it reminded me of when I first played an FPS using a regular controller, except that aiming precisely is already a TON more intuitive and easier to manage than I remember tiny joysticks being. While standing stationary, I had little trouble making headshots on moving enemies, most of my trouble came when I was moving. The movement speed in the game is very quick (like UT quick), and even the smallest nudging of the joystick would produce a full WADS keypress in the respective direction, This resulted in a lot of difficulty for me when trying to move and aim at the same time. So I switched to a game that supports joystick input for movement, Doom! I realize it''s not the best representation of aiming in an FPS, but it played great. I finished all of Episode 1 in one sitting with no deaths and had no difficulty aiming at enemies. I haven't sat down to play another true-3d fps, but I'm already convinced that with the right settings I could be just as effective as I am with a regular controller, if not moreso.
I spent most of the rest of the evening playing adventure games and Necrodancer. Obviously Necrodancer worked great, it just used the 4 ABXY buttons for everything, but adventure games were what I was really excited for. I LOVE adventure games, and the idea of being able to enjoy one from the comfort of my couch is VERY appealing to me. I've got a wireless keyboard/touchpad unit that I've used in the past to allow me to pursue this dream, but on the couch without a lapdesk it's cumbersome at best. This new controller completely removes my need for it, and I love it for it. Whether point-and-click like Sam & Max, or regular-controller-compatible like Dreamfall, I'm able to easily play to my heart's content without sacrificing any input fidelity. This is where I think the controller really shines, but that just betrays my priorities.
So, overall I like it a lot. The customizability allows me to play pretty much anything I want with it, the ergonomics are great (for my big man hands anyway), and I have had exactly ZERO wireless connectivity issues (screw you logitech controller). It'll take time before I know for sure that FPS gaming is viable with it, but since that makes up just a small portion of my gaming diet it won't really bother me if it doesn't, I don't think it'll even be as effective as true mouse/keyboard, but I think it has a fair chance of being better than a regular gamepad. I'm looking forward to playing some space sims with it, but with those I'm probably still better off playing with a real HOTAS. The current (apparent) requirement of the Steam client will be of-putting to some, but since the Steam client lets you add non-Steam games easily you can still make use of it without having to invest in DRM-laden games, though I sincerely hope that they add the ability to customize its behavior outside of Steam so that I can use it with GOG Galaxy once more games get achievement support.