I'm not sure this will help, but I have CH Pedals (gameport) and a Thustmaster FLCS (gameport) F-16-like stick, and WCS MkII (gameport) throttle, all working in Windows XP Pro on a P4.
My soundcard only has one gameport (so all devices are "daisy chained" together), but windows sees it like this:
Device 1 (I also have a USB gamepad) = 3-axis, 2-button Joytstick
In the properites for this device, I have the checkbox enabled for "Rudder pedals". In the Windows Calibration page, there is the white square where I can move the "X" with the joystick. There's a vertical scale for the throttle, and another vertical scale for the rudder. They all work. If all your devices aren't working in the Windows calibration page, they aren't going to work in any game.
Now then, assuming all the calibration controls are working, you can assign things in AH. For me:
X Axis = Analog Inputs Roll
Y Axis = Analog Inputs Pitch
Throttle = Analog Inputs Throttle
Rudder = Analog Inputs Yaw
And it all works fine. I think the key here is that you don't have Windows seeing all the controls first. If windows won't, then a game won't either.
By the way, if your stick programming software lets you map button presses to keystrokes, AND (maybe) the stick also connects to a keyboard connector, when it really is a two-button joystick as far as windows is concerned. If you are mapping buttons to AH commands within AH, then it is a multibutton stick as far as WIndows is concerned.
Hope this helps,
Llama