NES hurt your hands (tire burns on fingers... and these edges...)
SNES was a bit too small (teenage growing hands...)
N64 really did feel different, the analog was great but the trigger was genious for golden eye :p
GC I like it a lot, the main button is the largest, the shoulders have a great feel as triggers. The down side is the Z button and the D pad... awfull Dpad. That and I hate how the analog is directed in corners for you...
Wii... ingenious to say the least, but it suffers a few flaws. The nuchuck is too small for me, the buttons unpratical and the analog has that corners problem too. The remote part is nice, but the integrated NES controler makes the butons besides +-AB not very pratical, the motion does make up for it a bit and the pointer definitely makes it a good controler.

I'll go with teh N64 cause of the bad CG analog and dpad

(the analog problem for me is how there are angles in the plastic arround the stick, which when you're like pointing 74% up will make you point to northouest and when you're 76% will make you point to north... I have trouble with this in games like punch out)

original purple gamecube controller

I love how some of you speak of separate hands for the Wii... I play with my hands crossed at the wrist, with the wimote holding hand resting on the nuchuck holding hand :p so even less separate than before (well not for motion games of course)

GameCube's controller is the best ever made.

no doubt it had the right feel, it fitted on to my hands like a condom.

Wavebird/GC Controller >> SNES > Wii Mote (sideways) >>> NES >>>>> the N64 wannabe Controller >>>>>>>>>>> SEGA Saturn pad

I don't know which is best per see, but I think the N64 had the better positioned analog stick ever, no controller till then beats it. People used to PSs thought it was so awkward, but it felt perfect really. Then gain, the analog stick itself was a bit on the fragile side. But hell, for it's time, it was perfect design-wise.

NES and SNES where great for their time too, but NES was too, well, crude I guess. GC has a problematic d-pad and misses some opportunities in my opinion.

Classic controller I don't rally see the appeal of. It's analog stick is simply wrong so it's bad for current games. It's also obviously worse than the GC controller for GC games but doesn't emulate the N64 controller as well. I guess it's best for pre-N64 but post-NES games, wich is not really enough to justify being sub-par for current games.

Wiimote/Nunchuck is great, but Wiimote need motion+ and, well, Nunchuck too actually :P

It's a toss-up between N64 and Wii for me. I'll go with N64 because I think it's going to have less votes :P

The Gamecube controller was nearly perfect but the c-stick was its only fault. But other than that yes the WaveBird is awesome.

I also include the Wii remote and classic controller in the same catagory because the classic controller is an extension of the Wii remote. Now I have yet to use the Pro (that is until MH3 comes out :)   so i dont know how that works but yeah. Wiimote = Best.

Wii Remote on its own.

The ii mote. than Gamecube. Thoude were the best controllers. Definally