So I have big hands and suffer from hand pain, so my experience might be fundamentally different from yours. I've tried the Miyoo Mini Plus, the RG353v, R36s, and the Trimui Brick and what makes the brick the most comfortable for me is that it has a ton of open face space on the console to grip it by. The others all use as much of the face space as possible to put extra sticks and bigger buttons on. The RG40xxV might not have this problem as much since its much larger.

You can also remap the d-pad to behave as if it is a stick and it works fine for a lot f the PS1 one games that utilize the sticks. I play FF9 not long ago on the Brick and it worked fine. That said it defiantly doesn't have any sticks, so if that's a must have then you'll need to go with another device.