I put in a little deadband, not much -- maybe 5% up the slider. . Didnt have any spiking at all, so that wasnt the issue...just didnt want the thing responding when I shifted my hand position. Damping shouldnt be an issue unless the stick itself is having trouble, and is spiking because of a bad potentiometer.
If that's the problem, should see the numbers jump all over when you go to the map controllers section, highlight the axis, and click the advanced box. With the newest patch, you can see both the raw data (a green line on the bar chart showing what's coming from the controller) and the scaled data (what the result of your sliders comes out to).