A very very common joystick is the Saitek X52. It has roll, pitch, and yaw all on one stick, with a separate throttle. Even though I have that stick, I don't use it. I find using a keyboard gives me more control.
Plus, if the developers have a version stable enough to give to the youtubers, it wont be too long before they will iron out the final bugs and be able to give it to us.
Recently, the devs have stated that instead of doing really big updates spaced out farther apart, they will try to make quicker, but smaller updates. The 1.6 anniversary is right around now, so that gives you a clue on what it has been so far. .18 came out in very very late November, .19 came out in early march, .20 came out in late may, and .21 is right around the corner. That will give you a reasonable time scale.
I used to have a picture of a perfect ring that I was looking at in full zoom out of my space shuttle. I deleted my KSP folder, so it's gone now. This is the only known picture: http://i.imgur.com/ggIKL6p.png
When in IVA and zoomed in to the max, Jool appears as 4 pixels. A 5th one pops up occasionally. It shows as smaller than stars, and it's almost impossible to find by accident. It's over 100 times smaller than other stars.
Without any mods you can see Jool from low kerbin orbit. It shows as about 4 green pixels blinking on and off, with a 5th one blinking signifying that it moved a little from your perspective.