I guess then what I'd hope for is to have an option to define the map not by cells, but by borders (sort of like vector vs. raster, if you get my drift). I'm guessing that will never happen though.
It's possible, if you're thinking angles and either a square or circle deadzone. atan(x/y) to get angle (assuming center is 0,0), and |x| & |y| > some value for square deadzone, or x
2 + y
2 > some value for circle value. And x & y neg/pos to see which quadrant. User just needs to give a few angles, what the direction is between said angles, and a deadzone value. As long as the quadrants are mirrored, it's not
too hard to code.
Computation power needed, and fast, constant, ~60 to hundreds times per second computing, OTOH, is quite a bit higher than using grids. I think we need to wait a couple years if we want low/zero latency. IIRC, Andy said the u360 chip isn't powerful enough to do it.
I still stand by my statement that sticky cells are a hack to simplify implementation.
I don't like stickies either. I prefer "nulls" (aka center) or weighted direction cells in the grid. Not having any would be nicer, but...:
This paragraph doesn't change my opinion, but does rationalize sticky as realistic. It can be thought of the sticky zone as the microswitches's close vs release overlap area. Microswitches close at a certain point, but for it to be released, it needs to go back past this point by a noticeable amount before it is released. Even if the microswitches were perfectly tuned and placed in a 4-way stick, there would be this sticky zone. Say moving from up to left, with switches needing to be pressed 52% down to close, but releases only at 48%. At exactly halfway point on a diamond restrictor plate, up has not gone bellow the release point (50% still > 48%), and left has not depressed enough to close (50% still < 52%). So even on real 4-way sticks, there is a sticky zone.
Again, I'm not trying to make you like it, and of course, leafswitches don't have this microswitch activate/release overlap zone.
At least the 9x9 sticky diagonals are far, far better than the older 8-way to 4-way sticky diagonals (3x3 grid) mame had (and still has if you're using a (gamepad encoder) 8-way stick on 4-way games).