I installed my X-Plane last weekend and had a lot of fun flying. I didn't have any problem with setting up my X-52(?) Joystick and throttle and found its interface to be pretty straight forward for controls and visuals. The real world weather updates were the best, I was flying around the Portland area in my Texan with scattered storm cells that changed from rain to snow and in intensity. It was a bumpy ride with the turbulence and I had fun crabbing into the wind on some short runways in the hills. Flaps full down, sideways, and I could really "feel" the changing in lift from the wind. Lots of stuff to see with trains and smoke from factories and such. I also did some forest fire patrols and put a few out, hard to fill the bird with water skipping across some of the lakes.
All in all I am really impressed. I installed a freeware program G2XPL that creates googlemap textures for the area you are flying over on the fly. I couldn't get it to work though, I am not sure if it is because I am running Vista64 or X-Plane 9.3b, but if anyone has experience with this let me know because I would really like to get it working.
X-Plane has a ways to go in lots of areas, but is miles ahead of FSX in others. :ernae: