With technical limitations such devices were acceptable in the 80s and 90s, but somewhere around PS2 era it should have been stopped entirely.
Because of the low amount of buttons, game design itself is limited around making it playable on this rubbish. It conditions developers and gamers to have certain expectations about the overall game controls for every game and because of this there is little room for experimentation.
If that were not the case, there would be a lot more games with unique control schemes and simply offering unique experiences, instead of standardized narrow-minded shit that you s0yg0ys have entrenched your minds in.
Because of this brainwash, it has also seeped into PC gaming and stunted the developers desire for experimentation and freedom of expression.
Even games that are pinnacles of freedom of expression such as THPS series have suffered from this. They are a joy to play, but if they were not limited by these eunuch-devices, there would be way more versatility available.

Because of the eternal stagnation brought on by gamepads - we do not have wild, surreal, "rebellious" games and control schemes; just standardized, monotonous samey trash.
Sometimes I close my eyes, grab a gamepad and vividly imagine games with truly different controls, for example movement based on the R1 L1 R2 L2 or something crazy. It works, but there are also fingers that are being unused and that means lost and non-existent game functions and mechanics for thousands of games that could have them.

This is a truly decayed "hobby" that has no future in "human hands". The only legitimate hope is for interactive AI media and worlds.