Aaaaagh, my turn to reply to you Mr. Privateer.
1. Please do yourself a favor and get MS Sidewinder Force Feedback 2 joystick from ebay. They don't produce them anymore. It's most likely the best joy you can get. I got 2 of them. One as a backup.
2. Yes, FF works well with IL-2
3. As for IL-2 1946, upgrade to the current 4.09 beta patch version. Some nice goodies there.
4. Ok and a shameless plug for myself and our Slovak team. We did some heavy work for IL-2 in last 4 years:
http://www.simhq.com/_air11/air_335a.html
Don't forget to check out the Slovakia map video.
5. Sorry for off-topic