Never saw that one. And I even had the weird "eagle looking" "gamepad" with blue-and-red buttons which is in the middle here (random google image, not mine):
But the strongest were the square ones on the bottom left. You could hold them in one hand and bash that Decathlon records with the other. Also they were built to withstand an elephant handling them... The one next to them, model Joy Stick 123 was the one which was easily repairable by a razor-blade if the contact plate broke. Later when microswitches come around with constantly breaking springs, we used springs from ballpens or toys to repair them
As for Elite, my first contact with it was on the Amiga with Frontier: Elite 2 (not First Encounters).
Yeah that thread has taken a different turn, but for the better, methinks

And if the mods stretch a bit, the name of the topic (topic of the topic?) fits ;-) so our offtopic has become ontopic

[I'll go to sleep now, it's clearly sleep deprivation talking].