I have been using the X52 for roughly 6 or 7 years now. The first one I gave to my dad when he discovered flight sims, and the second one I bought here, after coming to the states. Never had a problem with them.
Sorry to hear about your bad luck.
However, what pissed me off, was that they changed the format of the profile files so that you couldnt use your old profiles anymore if you updated the software.