I was at future shop today and they had an Xbone out for people to play.  My first impressions of the controller was just how skinny the hand grips were, it felt as if i had nothing to grip onto, unlike the 360 pad which has a fat part on the back.  The RB/LB button is also unusable in its current state, half the button cannot be pressed, which is the part near the center.  As my fingers rested on the top of the controller i was unable to press the LB/RB button like i do with the 360 pad.  Next thing i noticed was the sticks felt skinny on the top, the small circle indented part is also too small.  Movement of the sticks felt normal though.   The Dpad seemed to work good, no complaints.  I don't recall anything different about the face buttons compared to the 360 pad.

The only game they had running while i was there was Killer Instinct, the game had crushed blacks and the contrast/colour options appeared to be set to max.  The game looked horrible with those settings.

Well, I had a chance to play it today at the Mall of America's Microsoft Store. I didn't have any problems like you did at all. Killer Instinct looked incredible! The whole thing was great. They had it on a 65 inch samsung tv that looked pretty impressive. I came back by on my way out and they has Forza 5 running on it and it was pretty cool. The crash effects on the car looked a little lame, as it looked more like the dents were painted on the car versus actual damage... Either way, I thought the controller felt good, but I have large hands.

You are literally the only person I've heard have these complaints

Some people just don't notice the differences between the controllers or hold it in a different way. If you had both controllers side by side you could see what i was talking about regarding the sticks feeling much different, the controller feeling skinny and the odd LB/RB buttons. I also forgot to mention i had no complaints with the triggers during the small time i had with the controller.

lol, not even the Wii U Gamepad being so different had a thread about it.

Sorry about that, but it really pisses me off how the Wii U has been left in the shadows by the gamers when the only thing Nintendo has been doing right is making games. 

hmm this is intresting, this is the second time I heard someone complain about this problem... do you have small hands?

Thats because nobody bought the system ;)

But from what i have played on the wiiU the buttons seem too small, the same with the dpad and the sticks seem to use an odd rubber which gives them too much of a sticky feel.  But i only played the wiiU after it had been out for a long time so made no thread on it.  If the PS4 controller was on display today i would have made a thread on it.

Some of my issues could just be down to how i was holding the controller as each controller has its own way of being held.  Kinda like the people who bump their thumbs together with the PS controller due to being held in the wrong way. 

Maybe M$ thinks that gamers are getting older in general and are making the controller bigger to accomodate that?

I'm just under 6"2" and have average hands for my height.  I can palm a basketball if that gives a better idea of hand size.

Maybe, but it would seem foolish for them to make the controller so its hard to use for people with small hands sense there target audience is the whole family.