I never got this to work either. The good thing is that once you have it set up, even if you uninstall the game, you control profiles remains so there is always a copy of it \users\documents\savedgames\dcs\config\input directory.
Just in case though, I have taken screenshots of each and every control screen and any axis tuning I've done so that if I ever lose my control setup, I can at least quickly manually configure my controls.
I have numerous tickets open with ED as well but I think they are swamped. They do answer each one though over time and a lot of times, the fix will be in the release notes of the next patch.
It's not perfect but I think it's a sacrifice I can reluctantly make to play this sim.