Yes well I have been flying IL2 Forgotten Battles and Microsoft Flight Sims since 2002, I have logged thousands of hours I would say, I have a force feed back joystick but no rudder pedals, I used the twisting action on the joystick for that.
Now that I have been training for real I too have had to be flogged around the head by my instructor to use the rudder for balanced turns, I put this lack of rudder use to my years of feet up on the table flying with the rudder on the joy stick (don't know if I told you that Neil)
IMO flight sims are good to get the basic idea in flying and landing but there was one thing I found was really good was for flying to sorties just using the compass and visual reference points, I have not started my cross country endorsment yet but I think that the hours that I have done over the years in flight sims will be help.
Anyhow that is the way I got over the flying bug when I had not enough money to do the real thing and I must say I have met a lot of good blokes over the years flying IL2 as I was in a squad and we used to meet at real airshows and Flight Sim expo's and the like, Good fun.
David