Hi, My experience is excellent. I bought them in 2009 and they have been working very well all this time. The best point is the very powerful programming software. You can program lists, short/long keypresses, several shift states, create new axes or buttons, etc.
In the stick I miss some additional button (a paddle button) or a two stage trigger, but you can always assign a shift button to the trigger and you'll have 2 buttons in fact. It includes a wheel in the joystick base as a third axis.
No spiking detected in my case.
Regards.