I felt almost the exact opposite, in that I think the concept was great but the execution fell a little bit short, mostly in build quality/button-feel.
The biggest single win for me is replacing the right stick for camera control, as the trackball emulation with haptics on the touchpad is so much faster and more responsive than a traditional thumbstick. There are some games that I'd still prefer the standard twin sticks or dpad (twin-stick shooters maybe, some platformers, or hyper-specific designed games like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons), but overall I've much preferred the touchpad over thumbsticks for almost every first- or third-person game I've played.
Yeah the controller was really good in theory and the technology was definitely great but the build quality just felt really off and like you said sometimes you can't beat twin stick/dpad but overall the controller was a great concept and paved the way for the index controllers and now the deck's controllers too.
The biggest single win for me is replacing the right stick for camera control, as the trackball emulation with haptics on the touchpad is so much faster and more responsive than a traditional thumbstick. There are some games that I'd still prefer the standard twin sticks or dpad (twin-stick shooters maybe, some platformers, or hyper-specific designed games like Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons), but overall I've much preferred the touchpad over thumbsticks for almost every first- or third-person game I've played.