Hristo, it's nice that you could simplify the whole issue like that, but it's not that simple. The control issues that plagued the F22 involved several factors, one of which was the potentiometers. Not the fact that they were pots, and not the fact that the design of the pots themselves was bad, but a problem that lied in the manufacturing process at the company who produced them.
This being a fact, it is reasonable that whoever was in charge of making the decision to use pots in the Cougar, decided to use pots of a higher quality from a different manufacturer.
Furthermore, USB CAN be a solution for a spikey pots. Spikes are momentary jumps in resistance values coming from the pots. Momentary, as in fractions of a second. Unfortunately, a game port will read these spikes and respond accordingly. However, since the values coming from the stick are polled several times a second, these erronious values can be filtered out before being sent to the computer. With a game port stick, this means extra electronics in the stick to intercept the pot signal before it is sent to the game port. With a USB stick, this already occurs since a digital signal is sent down the USB line. You simply need to impliment an algorithym that filters out the unwanted values that deviate from a reasonable rate of rise or fall of values coming from the pot. Unfortunately, it seems the new TM did not impliment anything like this on the Cougar. One further benefit of the USB port that the Cougar benefits from by default is the simple fact that the IBM-spec game port is and always has been a horribly designed interface which in itself can cause any or all of the problems seen as "pot problems".
As in the F22, I'm sure there are several things in the Cougar that could contribute to shaky control issues, including the pots. Just rattling off that it must be the pots, because pots are bad is not valid.
On the other hand, there has been a stigma going back as long as I can remember that pots = spikes & control issues, so I agree with you that the new TM should have used something besides pots the Cougar, even if it upped the retail price of the unit. I just agree for different reasons. People with experience tend to hate pots...the Cougar is a high-end product that's going to be bought by enthusiasts with previous experience with joysticks...use something else.
To your original question: It sounds like a gamble on whether or not your Cougar could have control issues. From what I've read, it will almost certainly have some play around the center, either from the start or from the break-in period. If play is something you can't stand (i can't), it can be fixed, but at additional cost out of pocket. As far as I'm concerned, the Cougar is worth its retail cost, plus the cost of getting the guts re-worked and installing the HAL sensors. You may not agree, but be aware that it's something you may have to deal with you buy one. So you know, I'm still using the stock pots, without issues.
SOB
