I hate you so much! what are you running to make your xplane actually look good.?
Honestly its all default with some freeware add-ons 

 Have you tried messing with the rendering settings?
I've tried the X-plane demo.  It seemed pretty good, but the user interface is pretty complicated, and the graphics looked good, but something seemed off.  I managed to fly a little, but couldn't get the controls figured out or setup the joystick decently.
Yeah the UI takes some time to get use to,  it was an adjustment for me. As far as the controls you can change the linearity in  the controls menu for a better feel and you will need to setup all your controls from scratch. Of course I dont think XP will appeal to everybody, personally I have grown fond of it 
