The only reason I originally purchased the Gamecube on the release date was firstly, after playing Perfect Dark to the death (addictive) I presumed it would be released on Gamecube too (there were even signs of it too).... then the saddened departure of the team to Microsoft which bugged me a little. I considered the PS2 and X-Box but the majority of the games I wanted for both came out on PC (eventually). The only luring point towards X-Box was the Halo game (I've heard that Halo 2 is actually just apart of Halo 3...?!) but the chunky SNES & PS2 inspired controller (could say Dreamcast but that was more based on the SNES and PS2 too) just put me off. It's an ok controller but just way too big for its own good. I loved the N64 controller and the Gamecube controller was just pure brilliance imo. The PS2 controller I've come to get used to but nothing compares to the controllers Nintendo come out with.
If Nintendo ever did go down the same route as Sega, I'd like to see them produce controllers at least