I had DA:O very much in mind with my post above. It restricts you to just 3 companions which is a significant irritation given the prolific amount of inter-companion banter there is, and Bioware tried to compensate by allowing you to swap companions at almost any time, with a fourth-wall breaking teleport rather than requiring you to actually find and meet like the Infinity Engine series did. Now this could be to keep pathfinding simple (something Bioware seems to have had long-standing issues with during the Infinity Engine and Aurora games) but the link with 4-button console controllers seems hard to overlook.
You also have the lack of environment effects with spells. DA:O is capable of environmental interactions much like D:OS is, with fireballs setting fire to pools of oil. Yet I only recall one location (inside a building) that made major use of this. Why? Well the console version lacks the zoomed-out top-down view needed to target spells to make use of such features. So a limitation of the console interface seems to have had an impact on the game environment for all versions.
Nothing you're talking about really has anything to do with controllers though. You're talking about performance limitations of consoles vs. pc. And fair points. But environmental effects (for example) really has nothing to do with the controller.
Then add gamepad support yourself using
XPadder. If it turns out easy and playable, by all means provide the details here. If not, you'll at least have gained UI experience.
xpadder is great, to an extent. It never (ever) feels/works the same as native support though, as anyone who has used both will attest.