I'd base all expectations on Steam Deck not Controller v1. You can already see the lessons learned in the deck.

The clicky-ness of the touchpad, paddles, shoulder buttons etc. is one of the things if absolutely love about the OG Steam Controller

The only reason I stopped using mine was because the membrane that makes the ABXY feel mushy eventually went and I couldn't find a suitable replacement.

If they put in some sort of mechanical switches there so that this couldn't happen, I would probably never use anything else.

Agreed with all of this except for similarity to Deck (if the touchpads are squircles I will lose my mind), but my main concern is the shoulder buttons. Pressing shoulder buttons on the SC is literally manual labor and sounds like cracking a glow stick. Hopefully they'll be more like the Deck or any other modern gamepad.

• Native support for games - have it use the Xbox or PlayStation profile
• Don't require that abysmal Big Picture mode for remapping, custom layouts, etc.

Yes to all this. I picked up my original Steam Controller the other day and forgot just how crazy loud that thing is.

Why were you using haptic vibrations on touchpads? I switched them off the moment I discovered I can, they are really annoying