The thrustmaster hotas X is a really great buy. I have been using one on E D (many hours a day) for over 4 months and it still feels great. Sure it would be good to have a couple more hat switches but the size and sheer stiffness of the X55 throttle made it a real pain to use and I sent it back. The Warthog and X55 joysticks are much "taller" than the hotas X one, this means that you have to hold your arm up in the air more even though they all have rests on them for the heel of the hand (they also don't have a twist axis which I would really miss for yaw control in E D). As for having your left hand on the throttle all the time, well you don't really, only when manoeuvring but in any event the throttle has a "domed" surface to the base, this means that you can rest the heel of your hand on it whilst still in control of the throttle position and in reach of all of the buttons bar the two on the face and the slider axis - using them is the only time you need to actually raise your hand - you can't do that with the X55, CH or Wathog throttles. All in all the hotas x is a good size for a desk (the PC's keyboard fits between the split units), is very comfortable to use and a real bargain.