Couple of things about the Cougar (which will be a fantastic stick, and probably the best out there).
There are a few things I dislike, which will make me go for an all CH rig:
The rubber skirt. Thrustmaster have a bad habit of putting a rubber skirt on their sticks. This means another artificial resistance on the stick, that increases exponentially as the stick is moved more and more. This means you'll have to use different amounts of power to get it to a specific location, and, due to the way the skirt is constructed, it's not always the exact same amount of pressure.
Some'll say "it's just like with the F16 stick: it hardly moves, and is sensitive to the amount of pressure on the stick". I'd agree with that. Unfortunately, the skirt system isn't precise enough - and the stick travels a LOT more.
Secondly, for those of us who like weak springs a la CH, it's gonna take some time to get used to.
That's the two minor complains I have, and both are cases of "my personal taste" - i.e I won't try to justify them, or I won't call them "shortcomings", as they aren't.
CH is it for me. With the new USB gear, they're durable as hell, easy to use, and jsut right in terms of resistance. More precision due to linear pressure.