(Awaiting revision upon further research)

I personally use a Playstation 2 controller with a USB adapter. My mouse is a microsoft 5 button laser mouse that i got from Newegg.com
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826105183

the extra 5 buttons are important, as they ensure that any game that I can play using a dual analog controller can be mapped to the mouse without any loss of button options.

How about other people? Do you use adapters? 360 controllers? or just a straight generic PC USB controller?

I originally had a huge long rant that went into how PC games were stagnating in terms of user input, and how every advantage that a Keyboard gave had a method that could be implemented in game to allow comparable or better control. Steam wouldn't let it post since it had too many characters so I'll boil it down to the basics.

A lot of the time if I mention using a gamepad, people mention some sort of program like Xpadder that lets you do a simple mapping of keyboard keys to gamepad buttons. Ultimately though this has limitations, primarily when it comes down to motion sensing, pressure sensitive buttons and analog sticks, which have or are becoming industry standards for user input for games.

Just something as simple as pressure sensitive buttons coudl allow you to differentiate between light and strong attacks, Fine tune defending (think of how it was done in smash bros melee), crouching to varying amounts (allowing you to duck down partially for fine tune aiming while behind cover), or even implement ducking and jumping in a single button (press 0-90% for ducking, press quickly to 90-100% to jump since most people have to bend their knees in order to jump)

Analog Sticks also aren't supported as well as they should be. wasd only allows 8 directions, where an analog stick allows 360, but even PC games that support analog still only have one speed with a button needed to toggle walking and running. Ever since N64, games have used the amount the analog stick is pressed to determine movement speed, but PC games still lag behind in this respect.
Then there are radial menus that allow an analog stick and a single button(commonly in the analog stick itself) to easily simulate anywhere from 4(4 commands bound to up down left and right) to 64(8 command groups with 8 commands in each group all bound to up down left right and the diagonals) different commands that would otherwise require keyboard macros.
Dual analog sticks can also be used for a much faster method of text entry than just on using an onscreen keyboard called Twostick. With practice this could get even faster speed than texting, and possibly even comparable to typing (provided you only used two fingers to type)
http://www.twostick.org/

The ultimate point is that none of these features can be handled using simple key to button mapping, yet would allow the player much greater control over the game, hence providing a more solid connection and thus greater immersion. This isn't even considering things like motion sensing and force feedback that gamepads can provide. These features therefor NEED to be included by the developers of PC games. This isn't just for the players, but also so that gaming itself can be allowed to evolve. Just look at how badly developers have been at taking advantage of Wii controls. Most can't manage anything past "waggle = X" "Spin = O" "shake = A" and this shows obvious signs that developers are stuck in the idea of user input being limited to simple "pressed/not pressed" button inputs.

What type of support do other people here want to see developers implement? I personally think it would be a step in the right direction if developers just didn't force you to chose between gamepad only or mouse and keyboard when they do provide support for it. Valve allows you to simply map the buttons and let that be the end of it.

Including myself, this group has managed to wrangle 5 members. It's only been about a month or so since I started this group, so that's honestly doing far better than I expected.

With having actual members, I thought it might be a good time to see if anyone else has any ideas as what events to run or any ideas for getting the word out to other like-minded gamers. In fact, how did our current members find out about this group?
Also, are there any specific topics that might be discussed so that people who stop by might get a better idea of what the group is about? Like what gamepad works the best at the cheapest price, where to buy them, and what control schemes work the best for which games.

Right now, I'm just bouncing ideas around to see if anything sticks. It'd be great if this group could eventually grow large enough to get Valve's attention and possibly the attention of other developers, but that's not going to happen just by letting it sit on its own.