Hold the fucking phone.
You're sitting here and arguing what the best input for a platformer is, and now you proudly proclaim that you've never played a Mario game, or any Nintendo platformer?
Look, I don't care what you think of the company. Nintendo revolutionized the genre with Super Mario Bros., basically defined the platformer as we know it today. And then they did it again with Mario 3. And again with Mario 64, but that's getting into 3D and away from the d-pad discussion. Point is, they were and have continued to be one of the, if not the, most influential publishers in the genre. If you have played a single platformer made in the last 25 years, I can pretty much guarantee that game took some cues from Mario. If you can't respect that, then why are you even discussing the genre?
It's like arguing about sci-fi for an hour before proudly proclaiming that you've never seen and never intend to see any Star Trek or Star Wars movies. Or arguing about fantasy and revealing you've never read Lord of the Rings. Or arguing about superheroes and boasting that you've never read, seen, played, or otherwise experienced any medium based on DC or Marvel characters.