MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - Crappy Xbox 360 D-pad!

I just got one of these and I can't believe how catastrophically bad the d-pad is. Don't they test these things? I almost broke it out of frustration last night, jop style.

At first I thought it must be because I've been using Sony Dualshocks for 10 years, but after a few more games of Bomb Jack, Mr. Driller and Pac Man there's no doubt in my mind, it really is built and sold defective.

Then I started googling and it turns out there are a million guides out there on how to improve the d-pad. There are two principal ideas:

Cut out a circle in plastic (a tupperware lid or similar), the diameter of the housing and place it between the d-pad and the contacts inside the controller.
http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/console/other/360-dpad.htm

Sand down the sides of the d-pad housing so that the d-pad itself doesn't come in contact with the housing when you move it.
http://diy360controllermods.blogspot.com/2009/03/360-d-pad-mod-to-improve-performance.html (this guy recommends doing both)

Just from looking, it seems like the first method will reduce travel and therefore allow tighter control (good), and the second method would result in longer travel and sloppier action (bad) unless you do the other mod at the same time.

Has anyone here done any of these, or other mod? I'm going to go ahead and do the first one since it's easily reversible but I'd like to hear some opinions on this.

/EDIT apparantly they've acknowledged that there is a problem and there's a new controller on the way. I think they should give it away for free.
http://pinoytutorial.com/techtorial/xbox-d-pad-new-controller-price-review-release-date-info/

S