I can't speak for later Saitek builds which seem to have had quality control issues since MadCatz bought out Saitek and now Logitech owns Saitek... but my original pedals from so many years ago (October 2007) are still working 100% on both toe-brake axes and the main rudder axes with no spiking at all in JoyTester2. The only parts that have broken are the spring loaded detents that allow adjusting the pedal length. So my pedals sit at minimum size due to gravity and can slide when I go to rest my feet on them. Some people mod them to get rid of the center detent and change the centering feel for flying helicopters (DCS World fans). But I have had no trouble using these pedals for flying anything in any sim after using them so many years. I use a small deadband around the center of the rudder axis through the Windows Game Controller Settings, but other than that I never use any curves or programming. In some games, the toe brakes need to be inverted. Sometimes I need a deadband to assure that no brakes are applied when no pressure is on the toe brakes, but usually the rudder axis is the only one that has any sort of deadband, and that is very small.
The big advantage of the Saitek pedals is the spacing. They are exactly far enough apart that both of my legs are parallel from the knees down to the pedals and don't interfere with my center pedestal mounted Warthog stick with a 15 cm extension. The intent was to model the geometry of an F-4 Phantom cockpit, and these pedals fit the dimensions I needed almost perfectly. It would literally cost me thousands of dollars to get a pedal setup that more accurately represented the form and function of real F-4 rudder pedals. But when these finally fail, I will probably try MFG Crosswind combat pedals (if they are ever put into production) or one of their all-metal but otherwise similar competitors. I will not give up having toe brakes, which eliminates the VKB pedals. Too many of the aircraft I fly across many different sims use them.
