The problems in DCS are arising out of the inability to get more feedback than the visual when trying to trim out the aircraft. In real life (or with FFB of course) you can, as you just wrote trim away the control forces.
This is incidently also the same reason why trying to trim out a modern Airbus (if autotrim has failed) is really annoying - no feedback other than in instrumentation and the ergonomically poor placement of the trim switches doesn't help either.
And yeah, you really get used to a good HUD and all the information it brings you - which makes for quite a difference once it is not available.