>>111569495Dual Shock's placement on the analogue sticks was just as bad as the placement for the GCN dpad and cstick. I don't know what kind of massive hands you have, but I just tried holding a gcn controller right now and it fits snugly (8" from bottom of palm to tip of middle finger).
As for the face button layout, I'd say they were about equal. Yes dual shock's was more familiar, but that doesn't mean gcn had a bad layout. NES-style placement for A and B, auxiliary buttons X/Y bordering the main action button A.
GCN controller does have some other issues though, beyond the cosmetic things people love to complain about. For the most part it was very ergonomic, but the design made the z-button and the d-pad pretty much dead spots. The z-button is very awkward to use quickly, and the d-pad is simply horrid on its own. The c-stick gets a pass, because even though it's in sort of an odd position, the small size makes it still comfortable to use (dual shock's second analogue was a little too tall for my taste).
I'll admit that overall the Dual Shock was a better controller, having more buttons, a useable dpad, and essentially another set of shoulder buttons (z button was just bad). The gcn controller was still fairly good though, not deserving of all the shit it gets.
The original xbox controller though, THAT was a piece of shit.