Newb with a U360 question

[Arcadian]

Hey everybody.  It's my first post here and I wanted to say hi and ask a couple questions regarding the U360 joysticks.  I jumped head first into building my first cabient with some friends from work. The plan was to build one for our office but figured since we're building one we may as well build one for each of us at the same time.  While cutting/prepping the cabinets, I started to search the www to get caught up on resarch and be able to make an informed decision on my control panel.  The office cabinet and one of my buddys' cabinets are using X-Arcade setups (Tankstick and Dual respectively) but after researching I've decided I'm going to build my own.

I've been hovering around this site and looking at reviews and information and decided I'm going to go with the U360s from Ultimarc which leads me to my question:

1. The Ultimarc website says

Input mode: Allows connection of up to 8 buttons per joystick.

Is there any downfall to doing this (ie, not as fast response, doesn't work well with IPac, etc.)?  Would you still connect your buttons to the IPac or is connecting 8 of the buttons to the U360 just as good?

I couldn't find a thread regarding this so if somebody has a link to share that would be great as well.  Thanks for your help everyone and I look forward to chatting with you soon.

Edit: I had two questions but one was answered in the wiki so I removed it from the thread.

[Donkey_Kong]

Welcome to the forum and the new addiction! 

I used to suggest to get an Ipac, but I have recently been running my 2p control panel with just the 8 inputs with the u360 wiring harness. It is working just fine, the button response is just fine.

Also, Andy has recently implemented a shift function to the U360 inputs that will give you even more inputs. More info here...
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=67111.0

If you like to use your buttons for certain keyboard presses the ipac is nice, but I'm sure they can be achieved through a joy-to-key program as well. This is the only drawback for NOT having the Ipac. We were trying to play quake with our CP and gave up. If we woulda had the ipac...no sweat.

Good luck and have fun!