So as someone who uses this type of input device, I think it's a great fit for military use.
- VLC when I need an easier way to seek media by various amounts, speed-up/slow-down the video, play next in the playlist. Using the controller frees me from being hunched on the keyboard
- Any document reader to navigate pages
It can of course be configured as a replacement for a mouse, but the precision in my experience was way lower.
I ran into the precision issue as well, but my brain eventually figured out how to deal with it. I use the left analog pad for higher precision tasks
The interesting thing is there's a learning period of a few weeks where I kept the sensitivity low on the analog sticks. I have the sensitivity lower on the left stick (for packages like inkscape or blender). I gradually ramped up the sensitivity. I often use it one-handed (right hand) and control with just the right analog stick. I have the analog pad clicks set to the right mouse button. The 'a' button is my left click, x button is 'enter', 'b' is another right click. The dpad is up, down, left right keyboard buttons. I use the left and right bumpers to switch between by workspaces (lb switches workspace up, rb switches down). the triggers enable middle mouse scroll up or down.
I still use a keyboard so entering text isn't much different, and I'm a vim user so the mouse isn't a big part of my workflow when coding or entering text.
In terms of how I think it helped:
for ergonomics/back pain relief: I tend to sit up with a lot better posture now rather than 'reaching out to the right' where the traditional mouse used to be.
Over time, I'd developed some minor right side back pain and I stretched a lot and attempted better posture. It only helped so much. After I'd switched to the xbox controller, I started to feel better after a few weeks. Months later, the pain was completely gone and it hasn't come back since. I didn't make any other significant changes and I suspect my change in user input devices could be to thank.