Maybe stay away from genie. They are to big and have the longest turning radius of any machine i've ever run. I think they are the lowest price but if you ask me quality seams quite poor. Also boom mount is extremely high. Pilot control is more kind of like a simulation. Actions are not as jerky. On my old JCB i could bounce the forks up and down quite violently, I would consider that direct control. By pilot I think it means lag time. My manitou 1745 is simulated(pilot), in other words very smooth and somewhat proportional. I think the cats before cat started being JLG were very similair to manitou on controls. My fork tilt lever on the manitou has 8 wires that feed into the harness, so it's all electronic. By the price of this part because I've had to replace it , it seem like its from aviation, or crane.