I have a Thrustmaster Hotas X and every single thing recognises it... Except AFBW... KSP does though I'm not home atm so I can't give every detail you wanted before I get there. I use the latest version of x86 KSP. I loaded AFBW using CKAN. I have also tried vanilla install and it doesn't help, I only see keyboard and mouse.
I have exactly the same problem. I have Radeon R9 280x, AMD fx-8320 @4.2ghz, 8gb ram, win 8. Loading speed is also much slower than normally (I use SSD if that affects)
Am I the first person who knew about this??? I encountered this in 0.22 or 0.21 because i sometimes play KSP with my laptop and to press f9 i have to press fn+f9. So sometimes i pressed alt+f9 and saw that. It has been so good thing! And nobody knew it...