Quick update. Over the weekend, I went out and bought an externally powered USB hub. It did not fix the problem. During the course of working on this, I connected yet another problem to the Saitek usage. Occasionally in the past, my center monitor, which is connected by HDMI cable to my vid-card, would randomly (or so I thought) go completely blank for some seconds, then kick back on. When it came back on, it would not just come back on immediately, but acted as if the video card itself had done some kind of reset; arena objects would come back in stages, first as solid white objects, then with the bit-mapping coming back on. I realized that this, too, has occurred during heavy rudder usage. I also was able to determine that it was not just the toe-brakes causing these problems, but that working the rudders themselves rapidly and with full deflection could cause these problems.
Looks like I'm going to have to open up the pedals and look for loose/open connections and shorts.
