My wheel vs pad experience so far...
I've been playing Gran Turismo since it's first incarnation on the PS1, and over the years have become fairly well adapted to the pad. I use left stick to steer, buttons to go/stop and shoulder buttons to change gear manually - and that's the way it's been since I learnt to use manual gears many years ago.
I'm nowhere near the quickest out there, but I'm reasonably competent in the right car on the right track - all golds in GT4 (including a fastest lap in the Merc Evo S license test round the 'Ring in the low 6'50's), low 2'16's at Suzi 600pp in the R8 and a few top 10's in arcade time trials.
Frustrated with not being able to enjoy the RWD & MR in GT5P due to poor steering and throttle control with the SAXIS, I went and ordered a G25 and wheelstand pro earlier this week... and the G25 arrived yesterday.
The wheelstand pro won't be here for a day or 2 yet, but eager to try the wheel I bolted it to my black and decker workmate and stuck it in front of the couch (my wife was at her mum's... otherwise this would NOT have been an option). This set up isn't ideal... the work bench is way too high, and even with 2 extra cushions on the couch the wheel was still at shoulder height and difficult to use for much more than 15 minutes at a time before shoulder ache set in... plus it blocked my view of the bottom half of the screen (including the rev counter) unless I sat bolt upright with no back support.
Eventually got it working (though not the clutch), jumped in the R8 (the car I'm most familar with) and headed off to free run at Suzi 600pp.
LMFAO... I'm all over the track FFS... first lap was a 2'49, and 2nd was a 2'30. Hmmmm, not quite what I expected. A few major problems...
1) Despite being quite adept at LFB in road cars I was having real trouble judging how hard to press the brake pedal for anything other than maximum braking, and the R8, that was as stable as a rock under brakes with the pad, is now swinging it's arse about like a hooker trying to drum up trade... left, right, left, right, spin
2) Clearly something to do with the amount and speed I was applying steering lock, but the R8 was oversteering - it never does that with the pad. And once it starts to oversteer I just can't catch it as the steering is too slow and heavy to get enough opposite lock on, fast enough.
3) I'm really struggling to get lock on fast enough to get round the hairpin and through Casio.
Had a quick look at the settings and changed to 'simulation', turned power steering on, left FF at 5, and headed back to the track.
Within 5 laps I'm down to a 2'19 (>3 seconds off my normal lap times), but the story was one half decent lap followed by one with 2 or 3 trips in to the sand.... still not really getting a feel for the wheel.
Went and had a think and a smoke!!
Came back and started again.
As I started to get more feel for the brakes things became a little easier... in that with proper corner entry speeds there was less understeer and less need to apply big steering angles... and as a result less oversteer when getting back on the gas. On occassion, through Degner I was 5mph faster on the apex than with the pad (97mph vs 92mph), but still struggling in the slower corners and to run consistent laps.
Over a couple of hours I ran a few laps in the Academy (within 0.7 of my best pad time) and in the current weekly time trial (within 0.2 of my best pad time) and ran more laps in the R8, getting down to a best of 2'17.1xx (about a second off my best pad lap), but a good lap would still be followed by one with lots of spins!
Also ran a few on-line races, including my first win with the wheel - a fairly dreadful 7'07 race time though!
Having a proper driving position (wheel more at chest height) should help, and with more use I can see clearly where the main advantage of the wheel is going to be - finer steering control thorugh faster turns and finer throttle control in RWD/MR cars. But it feels like it will be at least week or 2 before I'm going to be able to run anything like as quickly as I could with the pad!
Jury's still out for me.
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. i think it will take me longer then 1-2 weeks to get my times equal to my pad on AWD, RWD shouldn't take too long. my personal target is to pull off a 2.17 on Suzuka in a F430 and hold a drift in the next 2-3 weeks. it's just annoying when you know your pretty quick with the pad and you buy a wheel to improve your times and it takes so much effort to get your times equal to your pad times nevermind getting 1-2secs faster, the reason you bought it for 
