RetroArch's touch controllers are horrible, the interface as well, and the devs are bad enough to make emulator devs quit. I only have it on the Vita and PS3 where it kind of makes sense.

Unfortunately I don't know of a good, easy, free replacement. Lemuroid is the closest but I'm not a fan of how it needs to scan ROMs first, but this is what I use now. The .emu series almost cost me my Phantasy Star I run twice. Thankfully it's better for other consoles, DuckStation, PPSSPP, and Vita3K (I still prefer the Vita itself though). Undecided between this build of NetherSX2 or the totally not LLM assisted ARMSX2.