I think I must be one of the few (PC) users who seems to have never had a problem with his stick - actually I haven't got a stick I've got a Thrustmaster Dual Power two stick analogue/digital gamepad and it works brilliantly. However, to get back to your issue I thought you could set up a deadzone when you calibrate the joystick actually in Windows itself - this is what I've done in the past when I had a cheap and cheerful stick from Tesco and it had a terrible centering issue.
There are a few people currently slipping into the code at the moment so if you're lucky somebody may look into it for you (and others).
Forcefeed back would be nice though - a steady rumble when you hit the injectors are a kick when you take laser fire....