d-pad

I’m attempting a Wii portable at the moment and I have a very strong, almost irrational dislike of the GameCube controller’s D-Pad. It feels so small and unsatisfying when I’ve tried to use it to play SNES or GBA games. I’m curious what people consider the ideal D-Pad, portable or otherwise...

So I'm wondering if it's possible to take a joystick and use it as a d-pad. I want to use a 3ds slider for a joystick in place of the d-pad on a gameboy advance. I found a thread in the Guides section on something similar, but from looking at the diagram, it seems to be the opposite of what I...