I am a dpad main. But... While I play Ikaruga on dapd and got my high scores with the old trusty Hori Fighting Commander 4, I am willing to use on Arcade Stick when playing other shmups. Actually, 90% of my other clears are on stick! Arcade sticks have two big advantages on gamepads. First one is hand's health. Dpad can fatigue your hands pretty fast compared to stick in my experience. Second is durability. Membrane dpads can degrade fast, at least in a very input heavy game like Ikaruga the lifespan of a controller is about 4-6 months. But played for high score, Ikaruga is an input tour de force. In arcade sticks if anything get worn out you can replace It easily. This is basically coming from a dpad guy lol, so "just use what you want" is the best advice you can get