I've always disliked the Play Station controller and never understood how anyone liked it, especially compared to the Xbox 360 controller.  On the PS controller, the dual analogs were always in an awkward spot in relation to my thumbs, I'd rather have the left analog where the dpad is... Also, the L2/R2 buttons on the PS controller always made it feel as though the buttons were falling off the controller and taking my fingers with them whenever I used those buttons, and the PS controller has always been too small.. And I have average sized hands, it's just too small,(reply>), I personally never got the appeal of having the controller be asymmetrical, do most people grip their controllers differently with their left and right hands? Wait, I actually just thought of a potential reason...perhaps it's about whether you prefer your thumbs both to be resting on the analog sticks, or one resting on an analog stick and the other on the buttons? But then that would mean I would be more likely to prefer Xbox controllers as I play RPGs more than shooters, with shooters needing you to use the right analog more and RPGs using the buttons more... On the topic of the shoulder buttons, the upper triggers I feel Sony did a good job with, but the lower triggers it took me some time to get used to after going from the ps2 to the ps3, for the same reason of feeling that the buttons were going to fall off. To address your last point, I never had a problem with thinking the controllers were too small myself, though I have never even considered whether my hands are of average size or not.