I prefer standard. But that's just what I've been running since before I could reach the pedals. anyone who complains about feeling worn out after a day of running standard controls should pick up a shovel and shut up.
Joystick is twitchy control sometimes (especially some of the early joystick machines) and they're of course much more complicated/more likely to break/more money to fix. standard is all mechanical, nothing electronic to ever act funny.
Depends,
Are we talking EH Joystick or Pilot Joystick?
Pilot Joysticks don't rely much on wires. They rely on a low pressure hydraulic system to actually do the leg work of actuating the valves. Easy to spot leaks and such. The best part is they are comfortable, and give you a real time feel of what you are doing. They don't get "sloppy" as much as mechanical setups do. Mechanical setups have plenty of problems, always having to adjust them for centering purposes and the annoying creep. Not to mention the vibrations coming through the sticks and the joint pain from running pedals, especially sloppy pedals all day. I have big feet, not many machines allow enough room for my size foot and a big heavy mud boot to run the pedals comfortably.
When we switched to the ISO patterned pilots in the Cats versus the foot controls of the NH's, I went into it optimistic because they were more comfortable. I still preferred the foot controls. Now that I'm used to them and have learned how to make it perform the same in muddy conditions and such, I'd never go back. Love having a big open floor.
Now the EH controls on the other hand have some work ahead of them. Wires are a lot more reliable than they used to be but one of the biggest issues, especially in dairy farming, is machine cleanliness. So many people don't take the time to clean their machines. Then theres the ones who clean them to look nice but don't actually get down and dirty cleaning what matters most. Ill admit that if it wasn't for me being so picky about keeping things clean when doing repairs or service, and If I didn't have the "pride/polish bug" in me, I would probably never clean them. Its kind of depressing when you get the machine looking nice and clean again, then see it 1hr later covered in so much manure you can barely tell its yellow.
The EH controls still don't have a good enough "feel" to be able to jump between pilots and them. If we just had EH controls i'm sure we would get used to thinking a couple seconds ahead.