Believe me, Saitek is a good bang for buck...
I own TM Cougar and Hog for use with fighter jet sims but I also have Saitek AV8R-01 that I bought out of fun and used with Il-2 and FS for props. However, out of curiosity I tried flying Su-27 and MiG-29 with it and without too much calibrating curves and deadzones and programming switches I can say it's pretty good for LOFC birds...I've spent days and days tweaking Cougar to a satisfactory performance in close formation MP flights. With AV8R-01 all it took was plugging it...
My unmodded Cougar is from 2006 - no hardware / software problems so far although the centreplay probably did increase in between with use over time. It's hard to say as I use it almost every day so wear an tear is impossible to note. Can be compared to struts of a car. You can't say they got bad until you replace 'em with new ones. ;)
AV8R-01 is 2008 - no SW/HW problems, no structural failure.
TM hog - 2010, still too new for any SW/HW opinions.