I can understand why you'd be hesitant to spend that much on a controller. I was the same, I just got lucky to get one as a christmas present. I honestly have never used a higher quality controller. It's pretty shocking how completely thorough MS was in it's design, production, and custom function. Hell, the sticks are made of friggin' metal! You can remap every button and customize sensitivity and dead-zone on sticks and triggers. You can configure the paddles however you want. Only want two paddles? Four? None? Different Stick lenths, and different D-pads? all possible and super easy and intuitive to customise. You can save two different configs and change them on the fly with a flip of a switch. You can lock the trigger for short pull with a switch.
It is the ultimate gamer's controller and actually costs less than a third party custom controller with the same functionality. Best. Controller. EVAR!