In my dream world, hardware enthusiasts would be constantly creating absolutely crazy game controllers with bizarre combinations of inputs that look nothing like an xbox 360 controller. There'd be a universal input protocol that would allow for self-describing gamepads with arbitrary numbers of digital buttons, analog sticks and triggers, touchpads, mouse inputs, haptics, gyro sensors, levers, sliders, wheels, etc. etc.
I realize this may not be practical, but it's kind of weird that PCs have been more or less stuck with a protocol designed for XBox 360 controllers for 2 decades now, while the locked-down console space is seeing much more experimentation and innovation around input. The original steam controller at least hinted at being sort of an open platform for this sort of thing, although it didn't really take off. Fingers crossed for the new version.
It's because the two-thumbstick, 8 face buttons, 2 shoulder and 2 trigger form factor covers so many games there's not been a real reason for super wacky controllers. They kind of hit it out of the park on the 360 design and the only real sticking point left is the exact ergonomics which mostly fall into the PS thumbstick position (both lower) vs XBox position (left high and right low).
One big reason would be that the 360 controller was when they first made it standard USB to connect, and introduced Xinput with the standard set of inputs for games to target. I expect most gamers wouldn't find it pleasant if they had to assign buttons and axis before the joypad would be active/useful, then hitting play and trying to remember what JOY_5 mapped to as used to be needed with directinput.
The number of sticks and inputs hasn't changed much since the XBox and PS1 days either though, it's not just that the 360 and XInput became a default. Outside of Nintendo's experimental time in the Wii and GameCube era it's been the default for several decades and even Nintendo has basically given up and come to the same format since about the Wii U days.
Gyro aiming being on all 3 console platforms would be such a huge boon, because then it could finally get implemented in every shooter. And they could start heavily nerfing the frankly ridiculous aim assist that controllers currently get.
Back buttons would be another nice one. Right now there's just 2-4 buttons too few on controllers, and it often leads to strange button mappings that either shift with context or require multi-button activations, which gets even more annoying if you have to do it during, say, a jump.
Is that something people are actually asking for? I don't think I've heard of anyone actually pushing for gyro aiming in major shooters like COD, Fortnite etc.
It's one of those things that people who haven't experienced simply wouldn't know to ask for. Wii had motion aiming but it was more of a gimmick, it wasn't until playing FPS games on the first Steam Controller that I, personally, realized how much more playable and comfortable gyro aiming made these games-- coming from mouse+keyboard, I found fine-aiming challenges on thumbsticks to be very uncomfortable.
Gyro aiming completely solves both fine aiming and tracking aim on a gamepad when paired with some kind of touch sensitive control for enabling the gyro (natural recentering).
In console FPSes they just automatically track the enemy if they're near your crosshair and call it a day-- giving everyone an aimbot instead of solving the UX issue.
It takes a bit of time to get used to, and games don't necessarily do a great job explaining it. At first I preferred the stick also but eventually grew to prefer it. I'm not sure how popular it is but a fair number of games like Fortnite[1] and CoD do support it.
For most people you're better having relatively high sensitivity on the gyro and using the stick for large movements. Using human pistol aim as a metaphor it's like the stick is your arm, and the gyro is fine tune aim in your wrist.
Personal experience. First: I'm not a gamer. I'm honestly bad at aiming with the mouse. (Even in my personal favourites, SC1/2, much more intensive on raw mechanics than AoE or BAR.)
I've first played Zelda BotW/TotK (which is very light on precise aiming), and I found the gyro both precise and intuitive. The game is nowhere near as fast-paced as a modern shooter, and the weakpoints are large enough to consistently crit. I enjoy the bow.
Then I've Switched to Warframe - a looter-shooter. NO auto-aim. My first attempts to aim with the thumbstick were painful and felt pointless. The default sensitivity was very low, which I imagine was supposed to help aiming, but it made many parkour moves near-impossible (the game heavily relies on both). You could always press a button to place the camera behind your back, but that was two-step, non-incremental, and wouldn't help turning up/down.
So I've cranked thumbstick sensitivity to the max - turning the camera whichever way was now easy; then committed 100% to the gyro for aiming. Honestly, I'm much more precise than I've ever been with the mouse. I can consistently land headshots (super important with incarnons), use bows / thrown / charged weapons, etc. My hit ratio is between 50-70% for most weapons.
I'd now be hesitant to aim with a mouse. Thumbstick - out. But that's just personal experience.
USB HID actually works pretty much how you describe, for instance a Physical Descriptor can contain metadata about which body part a button/control is supposed to be used with.
It's extremely complicated however (like many things USB), which is probably why everything just emulates an XBox 360 controller like you said.
It's related to XInput making that easier option on Windows, from my understanding.
Especially if you supported both XBox and Windows.
So the only complex HID game controllers are for very much enthusiast setups, which are rare enough to trip things like absurd assumptions in HID drivers in some systems (the joystick+throttle I have used to break linux HID driver because someone decided to statically allocate possible amounts of joystick buttons per device...)
I'm happy we stumbled into in a state where you can buy a controller and plug it into your computer and it'll likely work hassle-free with basically all of your games. And I think that's what most people care about, more than being able to use wacky controllers with extra buttons.
Hell, configuring my own controls for a game is one of my least favorite things to do. I haven't even played the game yet, I don't know what button should do what!
The way it is, the devs know what kind of controller everyone will likely be using, they can figure out their ideal mapping for how the buttons should be used, and we all have an easy time using our controllers.
Maybe with 10 fingers' budget, considering that at least three per side must hold the device, it's the most rational setup to allow for reaching two directional pucks and some buttons?
I realize this may not be practical, but it's kind of weird that PCs have been more or less stuck with a protocol designed for XBox 360 controllers for 2 decades now, while the locked-down console space is seeing much more experimentation and innovation around input. The original steam controller at least hinted at being sort of an open platform for this sort of thing, although it didn't really take off. Fingers crossed for the new version.