Moving back to the actual joystick discussion...
For the CPS Stick, I had no problem with the layout - I was already familiar enough with Japanese-style arcade stick/button layouts that I knew what I was getting into. Therefore, I'd probably be fine with the stick if it had a Japanese-style button mod, rather than those cruddy "Stock" buttons that I feel get in the way of it being a "Real arcade" stick.

On early Hori-Brand sticks, I have a Hori Fighting Stick SS, and it seems like an OK joystick, but I didn't particularly get the "Best Joystick EVER" vibe some of the other folks make it out to be.

The XE-1 stick description makes it sound more like it's being praised for it's "extra features" than for actually being a good arcade stick on it's own - which is not to immediately judge it, but I do tend to get annoyed when a joystick gets recommended immediately for "Adjustable Turbo", a feature I feel is more equivilant to cheating than a good arcade stick feature. The CPS Stick also has that and the 4/8-way switch, and I largely ignore these functions - ok, one time I tried the 4/8-way switch to see how that sort of thing is supposed to work, but simply "Disabling" the diagonals rather than making them physically impossible to accomplish felt rather cheap to me. Not that it mattered anyway - I wasn't gonna be playing Ms, Pac-Man on this stick.