X-36 is pretty damn good - more buttons than you can shake a stick at and the programming's pretty easy, but the SGE (programming software) adds tons of crud into your registry and alters all sorts of gubbins in explorer and gaming control panels - verry dodgy. That said - if it works, it works nicely.
It works with CH Pro Pedals USB, and there's a hack driver available to treat the two together as a single stick (don't need it for AH).
On the duff side, it doesn't have a Win2k programable driver, you're stuck with Direct X buttons only for the time being if you're in Win 2K...
I used to have CH Products Fighterstick and throttle (well, on a Mac), but I reckon the saitek has the edge (more buttons, and the stick is human-sized, rather than bear-sized) and it's cheaper too, last time I looked.
I'd wait for the X-45, because of the new non-explorer hacking/wrecking software. Otherwise the X-45 looks like an X-36.1, and if so it'll be well worth buying. The only questionable bit is the new software - but hopefully it'll be more sanely thought out than SGE.