You're thinking of it like it's three to one and it's not. The thumb is not a finger. It has a range of motion and can mimic pretty easily the quick movements it would take three or four fingers to do. Plus I don't know about you but I don't have the same control over each of my three fingers. I wouldn't be able to double tap with my ring finger as fast as my index and I'm sure most people are the same way that each of their fingers have varying degrees of, I don't know how to word it, rexlex skills?

1) Onyxmeth already answered this, I'm not comparing just keyboard to a dual analog, I'm comparing the wasd to a single analog stick, single analog wins. What point is there to moving at a speed between 0 and Max? Well, that seems pretty obvious to me, you see, I usually do only move at 0 or max except I don't ONLY move in straight ahead or left/right. There are 90 freaking degrees between straight ahead and left, and I feel it is perfectly reasonable to have access to all of them, as well as the other 3 sets of 90 that go between the 4 base directions and perhaps even the .5 degrees between them.
If I wanted to run straight ahead, but 5 degrees to the left, while shooting at something 45 degrees to the right, I should be able to do that, using the WASD keys and mouse, I would have to use some odd staggered pattern of 1 step to the left for every 5 steps forward, except in order to aim at what I'm shooting, I have to switch that partway in teh middle so that I'm going 2 steps to the right for every 5 steps, then 1 to 1 then 5 left for 2 stright ahead, etc. with Analog and mouse, I can aim, and as my mouse turns the camera so I'm facing in another direction, all I need to do is just rooooollllll my thumb in time with the camera and it will be just as much smoother than wasd as it is when you compare aiming with the mouse vs aiming with an analog stick.

2) You used lock on? Why? If you had adjusted your options to teh advanced controls, you could have made your camera more sensitive to the camera and been able to turn quickly without moving it all teh way to the edge of the screen, which allows you to line up your pointer with teh enemy as they come into view. The only thing I felt was lacking from MP3 was some way to do quick 90 degree turns, but they could have used the motion controls to do that (if you point the wiimote at teh edge of the screen and flick teh wiimtoe in that direction, it gives you a quick 90 degree auto turn, 2 flicks = 180)

3) This I call BS on. Or failure, it's your choice. Are you seriously trying to tell me that you NEVER had your analog stick maxed out at any other position besides 0, 45, 90, 135, 180, 225 and 270 and 315 positions? You never had the analog stick at say 30 degrees? or maybe rolled it from 0 to the 90 position, thus hitting all this positions inbetween momentarily? Sorry, just don't see it happening, and even if it did, that just means YOU don't benefit from the analog stick, not that other people can't.

4) Go put on a neck and back brace, now run around outside WHILE looking at stuff. Every time you turn your body to aim at something you must move only at 45 degree increments. You either have to keep running straight ahead, or you have to run at 45 degrees only. Does this sound difficult? congratulations, you've passed the first step. Now take off the back brace, instead of the wasd keys representing your whole body, the analog stick will represent your lower body, assume that any direction you pick is striaght ahead, you can look around in any direction(aiming) while still being able to continue running(analog) in the same direction regardless of how you are facing(aiming)
That is the difference between WASD keys and Analog stick. If you don't feel any way that can benefit, it's probably because those lovely FPS have their levels designed so that's not an issue. Really, it's the same thing as FPS games for consoles incorporating autoaim, it's just something less obvious because the handicap is implemented on an environmental level rather than a personal level.

you raise a good issue, except that usually is only for games that are designed for keyboard to begin with. When the game is designed for analog stick from the very start, the speed generally remains consistent through the entire arc of motion, you don't have slow downs and then speedups as it moves between points on the axis. Even then, that issue is easily negated simply by moving the control stick faster from one axis to the other.

Oh c'mon now.  Back when i still played FPS I consistently got high rankings and one of my favorite activities was strafing snipers by erratically tapping either my index and ring finger to confuse their aiming.  And in Tekken I use my fingers to execute the button combination which would be very very hard to do with just the thumb.  There are simultaneous key presses that are very hard to do with the thumb particularly when you have to press two opposing directions at the the near exact moment, impossible to do with the thumb.

Wow! I apparently opened a HUGE can of worms here. My point was that no matter how well you use your mouse, it doesn't change the fact that I can precisely control my movement speed with a controller, but can't with a keyboard. The mouse may be fantastic, but the keyboard sucks.

I disagree.  When I play fps or over the shoulder shooters on console, I rarely have to use the slower level walk speeds.  I just change states to crouch, or walk when I want to go slower.  I use the slower movement with the analog stick when people are watching me play 3rd person shooters, just to make the character's walking badass.

I personally recommend this baby:

http://www.videogameall.com/ps2-accessory-dual-usb-adapter.html

It allows you to plug in two PS2 controllers into a single USB port. This is particularly nice if you already have a PS2 controller(or two) and its great for using Analog with Mouse(the more complex games usually benefit from a mouse with 4 buttons + wheel w/click) due to the PS2 controller's double shoulder buttons, analog button, select button, and dpad. The PS2 controller has the most buttons I've seen on a controller, and the buttons all mirror each other, so you can use it left or right hand without issues to mouse with whichever hand you're comfortable on. It takes a bit to tweak teh controls for optimum performance, but Psychonauts and Thief 3(not sure about the first 2) play wonderfully on this setup, though both can also work fairly well with just PS2 controller too. Not sure about FPS, it basically depends on how well they support joysticks and analog controls, but there's really no certainty of whether any particular game will support it, so it's all kind of on a game by game basis.

1) Why do you wanna move 5 degrees to the right while oging forward is my question? It doesn't move you out of the line of fire nearly as fast as a direct right strafe. You just end up being shot at and dead.

2)Because if it was the advanced setting the friken screen would not stop moving unless i had the reticule dead center, which never happens. Hard to enjoy the scenery when you can keep the visor still.

3)Why does it matter if I hit all the positions momentarily? I want to do a hard left not a nice graceful arc. The rest goes back to point 1), I don't see the need to be moving in any angles other than the 90 degrees when facing a person. Anythign else gets you shot or isn't enough advancement forward.

4) Please enlighten me, how exactly are levels different when made for analog sticks and not WASD? Any Halo/GoW/Reista/you name it shooter has had the exact same level layouts as PC FPS games. Also I'd love to see ANYONE pull off smooth transitions between their aiming and moving with dual analog sticks, such that they continue moving in a straight line as they aim around, then I want them to do that and jump.

@OP

There is no reason why you'd need slow movement in a FPS game. It's either max, nothing, or die.

 That's based on the assumption that all you do is combat.  Games like Half-Life with narrow ledges and precise jumps need analog control.

Most of the more technical fighting games are still best played with an arcade style digital joystick. They're still the preferred controller for tournaments. Tekken, with its "typewriter" combos is best played with the right fingers rather than the right thumb.

But the point would be, optimal input device varies from game to game even as much as it typically does between genre to genre.

I still have a hard time imagining using anything but a mouse and keyboard for any RTS, as much as I loathe the genre.

For FPS, it would be tough to find anyone who could aim better with an analog stick than a mouse, particularly since the mouse is specifically designed as a pointing device, whereas the stick was designed for constant movement.

Because of its precision, the mouse is used as a movement orienting aid (to alter the cardinal directions of WASD).

By the same token, a pair of analog sticks typically have to be used in tandem in order to properly aim quickly without having to resort to imprecise tapping of the right stick. The left stick used for character movement, is used as an aim orienting aid for better precision. Compound movement; requires adaptation to function properly.

But still not nearly as easy to aim with as a mouse

Most PC gamers probably didn't complain about this, but the original Half-Life did feel as though Gordan Freeman was wearing ice skates or roller skates throughout the entire game.

Players adjust to the controls, but if you're coming from a third person action platformer background, they were pretty clunky to say the least, particularly for the amount of precise movement control required for various platforming sections of the game.

Not quite a frustrating as playing a Tomb Raider game with a keyboard, but in both instances, an analog stick would be a better choice for those who don't game exclusively on a PC.