controllers, and the people who love them..

this is a quick question to Dtoid folks: do you have a specific controller that you refuse to give up, no matter how broken it gets?

i spent about 30 minutes last night testing cables and connections inside my favorite PS2 controller (i'm fairly certain the cable's going bad, but a little tweak here and there.......) only to realize that i *could* very well go out and pay the 25$ for a new sony-branded controller that's practically identical to the one i'm repairing, but is it really?

i'm a huge fan of this specific controller, it's the one i got when i got my PS2 so many, many years ago. i believe in loose analog sticks (ok, not incredibly loose, but looser than a new one), and rubbed-down buttons all around. my husband suggested i could go buy a new one and swap out the parts i like to the new controller's board, which is entirely possible, but it doesn't sound like much fun.

the more i thought about it, the more i realized that this behavior comes from the OG gaming. you know: blowing into cartridges, jiggling contacts until you hit the sweet spot, etc. hell, i've been known to add a thin layer of soldier to the inside of a 2600 controller that's lost it's contact points (honestly, Combat is NO FUN when you can't move up, but your opponent can)...

am i alone in this behavior? is this a dying art?