Lol. That is quite how I feel about arcade sticks actually. I personally think that all directional inputs are slower on stick than pad - the area you have to travel to do anything is far larger, and tension in the spring determines how quickly the stick can even return to neutral. D-pad motions are quick - just a wiggle of the thumb and you’re done. Dashing and general movement is far superior on a d-pad than a stick IMO. I agree with you on the analog stick though - that thing is just a slower, less good version of a fight stick.
I did make the switch though, largely just because it is MUCH harder to get an accidental button input on an arcade stick. I finally had one too many accidental widow’s drops from Sadira (this was before you could de-toggle the right analog stick), and just said eff it. I do think that it’s much easier to play for long periods on an arcade stick, and overall button setup is just much cleaner for a 6-button fighter like KI.
It’s kind of funny though. I had to play the SFV beta (on pad, since MS’s $200 Xbox One TE2 doesn’t work with Windows 10 yet 
) to remind me just how much I missed using the d-pad. I was cranking out reaction DP’s to every single jump in, and was dashing back and forth all over the place. It was kind of glorious 