Optical rotary with mechanical feel?

[phildo77]

I'd like to have the ability to have controls that encompass as many games as possible but also be efficient and fairly authentic in feel.  From researching a little bit it looks like for games with rotary joysticks that the optical rotary will encompass most games with rotary joysticks but doesn't have that authentic feel for those that use mechanical rotarys.  I'm wondering if anyone has a come up with any ideas that have the following qualities:
1) Optical rotary joystick that works and feels like a mechanical.
2) Make the mechanical feel "switchable".  Be able to engage or disengage the mechanical switching feel.

I'm thinking that this may be difficult as you would have to somehow program the optical interface to "count" per rotation so that the game behavior is authentic.

Any ideas?  Also, is there a way to emulate the optical using the mechanical joys?