Asus announces new Xbox controller

[Flappy Pannus]

I've seen people really mash buttons and ram the sticks all over the place which may put extra wear and tear on a controller.

Like, what does this even mean: "ram the sticks all over the place". They can only go where they're housed. Moving the sticks is what you do with a controller.

I could just be very lucky, but I've been using analogue stick controllers since the Dual Analog Controller for the original PlayStation. Was drift an issue back then? It feels like people have only been talking about stick drift for the last couple of generations.

You are just lucky. The reason you see more people talking about it over the last couple of generations is the same reason you see a lot more discussion online than 25 years ago - more people are online.

It's not abuse, it's not 'holding it wrong', it's cheap potentiometers that can vary in quality.