I never liked them, even back in the day. I think gamepads where more tailored for gaming. Joysticks might have come from flight simulators or something?
Some disadvantages, you have to hold tight with your own hand and tilt the stick with the other, which in many joysticks was very tight, needed strength. Maybe the only good joypads where in the coin ops back then, lighter and did nice click. Maybe joysticks were mostly good for oldschool atheltic games where you do left-right very fast (harder to do fast on dpads with one thumb).
Also, I remember many games in 8bits, using one button for fire, and up joystick direction for jump (instead of second button). That was awkard and I remember even today, getting a modern one from some C64 remake consoles, and I walk my character forward and he jumps onto some spikes because of touching a bit up. Or when I have to combine move right and do a bit up to jump a big gap.
I do remember on Amstrad CPC back in time, most games had redefine keyboard mapping, and I would always always use the keyboard rather than the joystick. If I pressed Left (or P in Q A O P configuration) it was Left. Not Left and accidentally Up (which actually even some bad dpad have the same issue, but not as much). If I pressed Left and then Up, it will jump to the Left direction, I had precise control. In keyboard I had exact control of what I want to do. And the thing that irks me, some platforms like C64 or Amiga, the opposite was the norm. Nearly 90% of the games would require you to use joystick, no keyboard, no redefine keys. It's like the devs there would say "who plays with keyboard still?" but why was the trend opposite on CPC (which is a good thing)?
