I'll respond with one more vote for the
Thrustmaster T16000m. For the money it is a great stick. Same magnetic HALL sensors as their joysticks that are several hundred dollars more, in a cheaper (but not crap) package. Plus it also uses the TARGET joystick tweaking software like the more expensive Thrustmasters (although I don't use it). You can sometimes find it on sale, as I got mine for $25 earlier this year. It has a nice wide base that is fairly heavy and a smooth motion on the stick and twist, so it pretty much stays put on the desk. Buttons are plastic, but still plenty responsive and trigger has a satisfying "click". It can also be switched for left or right hand use in less than a minute. I have it paired with a Nostromo gamepad for the left hand (older version than the new one pictured below with the sexy LEDs). I also ponied up the $8.00 for the full version of
VoiceAttack.
I love that setup. It does everything I need it to with ease and I don't even use the stick's throttle or buttons on the base. There are so many bindable buttons that my VoiceAttack commands all actually have keys, they just have verbal commands too for ease of speaking when concentrating on other things. I set the bottom left button on the Nostromo as a shift-type key (I use HOME). So if I hold down that button I have another whole set of keys to bind. The joystick has pitch, roll and yaw for the stick. The hat button is set for headlook directions, and power management when holding my shift key. The other joystick buttons have my fire groups, fire group cycle, headlook toggle, deploy/stow weapons, and menu left/right. On the Nostromo I have throttle and left/right strafe on the direction pad, up/down strafe on the two buttons above the mousewheel, all-stop and disable assist on the big button next to the direction pad and 32 other key binds for things like frameshift, UI navigation, landing gear, targeting, throttle presets, comms, boost, etc.
For me, I would gladly give up the benefit of having a large physical throttle, to quickly set at precisely the level I want, with a few buttons in the left hand for the massive amount of controls a left-hand gamepad delivers. I like having every command at my fingertips as a backup to voiceattack. For convenience VA great, but sometimes you just need to hit something NOW, not in a second once you say it. With the T16000m and the Nostromo the only voice-binds I don't have physical keys for are a few UI commands like "right four" or "down three" to move the cursor around the menu and info screens. It would work great with a VR headset where you don't want to move your hands around because you can't see your desk. Although, I would miss looking at my diagram I made up to remember all the keys.
Edit: after looking for a link for the Nostromo, either the Belkin one I have or the newer Razers, I figure they must have been discontinued. Amazon has some Razer models for $200+ and old Belkin ones like I have for $150ish. Both of those prices are ridiculous. A decent left-hand gamepad should be between $49 -$89. There are other models within this range that should work just as well.