>>That said, I'm enjoying the game enough that I'm actually playing
>>around with the idea of buying a HOTAS controller, which is not
>>something I would have considered before.
>
>400 bucks on a joystick?

The price of my HOTAS setup didn't bother me - trying to find a good way to set it up on/next to/with my desk so that it's comfortable to use and yet not pushing me too far away from the monitor is my biggest issue. (Using my Oculus mitigates the monitor issue, but the DK2 resolution isn't high enough for the *cockpit* monitors to be legible...)

That and the setup/teardown time which pretty much means I don't hop into Elite unless I'm ready to spend a 4-5 hours to make it worth it.

Star Citizen is going to make it worse with needing a keyboard and mouse on top of a stick for when you're on-foot. (And I imagine Elite will have the same issue when they add planetary landings)