I purchased an X55 to use for ED and flight sims and like many others, had to send it in for warranty repairs. This is back when it was Madcatz so I will only comment on the design of it vs. the quality.
For me the stick felt too large and I wear a large size glove, it was just too much of a reach for my thumb to use the top hat comfortably. I did like the twist feature for yaw and I also liked how the switches on the throttle were treated as buttons and not actual switches. It was light so I had to make sure it was secured to the desk when I used it. I did not care for their centering spring set-up but to be honest it didn't bother me so much until I tried a different design. Overall, it just felt light-weight and a little cheap for the $200 price tag.
After I sent it in for warranty replacement I tried a dual stick arrangement using a T16000m and a Saitek Evo. This felt the most natural to me for flying a space ship but while great for flight, it was lacking on buttons unless I wanted to take my hands off of the sticks and use the buttons on the base or a keyboard. So..... I decide to bite the bullet and get a warthog and a set of rudder pedals and this is what I currently use to fly ED.
The first thing I noticed about the warthog was the weight. It has a lot of metal, it is heavy. I don't feel like I am going to break it short of running it over with a truck. The second thing I noticed was how much better the stick fit my hand, my fingers just naturally rested over the switches and buttons without any awkward stretching. The third thing I noticed was it's overall size. This is a large set of controls and to just put it on my desk would have made the stick way too high to use comfortably. My solution was to build an extension arm that comes out from under my desk and attach the stick to it. This positions it much like it would in an actual cockpit, low and between my knees. As to the stiction issue, I did not find it to be really noticeable but I did go ahead and take it apart and clean up the extra grease and I find the stick movement to be smooth as silk.
If I had to do it all over again.
If ED was my only game, to me the ultimate set up would be a left and a right warthog stick with rudder pedals. The combination would give me all of the buttons I need and my hands would never leave the controls while also giving me the control that comes with two sticks. Since currently this is cost prohibitive (there is a third party working on a left hand warthog stick - you supply a right hand donor for internals) my second option would be dual T16000m with the new Thrustmaster rudder pedals and some script work in the TARGET software to allow the foot pedals to act as button modifiers. This should allow enough buttons to control everything without having to take your hands off of the sticks. However, since I also play a few flight sims and the throttle works well for those, I am quite happy with my current Warthog stick and throttle with MFG Crosswind rudder pedals. I am not a hotshot combat pilot so in all honesty I probably would not be that much better of a pilot with 2 sticks, but it just felt so natural to fly a spaceship that way.
If Logitech can remedy the quality control problems of the X56, I'm sure it will do the job just fine but after having the Warthog I can honestly say it is twice the stick the X55 was and then some (for twice the price). Another option is Thrustmaster's new HOTAS based on the T16000 but since I have not used, or even seen one I can't say how good it is (although my T16000m stick felt solid and was trouble free).
