good joystick/rudder/throttle choices for MS Flight Sim 2004 on XP

I doubt that there's much gameport hardware on the open market. I have
gameport controls that I'm happy with - they're 2nd hand which means
I'm SOOL if they start going bad. Also, you should check to make sure
that your machine has somewhere to plug those gameport controls in.
From what I understand, there's a solid demand for some gameport
controls, and you can still find gameport rudder pedals on E*Bay. I
got mine about 2 years ago on E*Bay for under $50, and I'm not about to
replace them. BTW, you can mix and match different brands - my pedals
are CH, buty my stick and throttle (separate units) are Thrustmaster.
I'm not as certain you can mix different connector types (USB &
Gameport) though. If you don't already have a gameport, you may have
to buy a new soundcard - all the original gameport-only add-on cards
(including the Thrustmaster ACM) were designed for the ISA bus, and
AFAIK, all motherboards of the last five years ditched ISA for PCI.

Lastly, have you even tried ACoF on your machine, controls or
otherwise? Before it crapped out, my machine tested the somewhat more
demanding but similar CFS3 - and the results were quite dispiriting,
painful reminders of the slideshows I experienced on older machines
when stretched the limits of the hardware sys req. My specs were P4
running at 2 gig, 512 mb RAM, GeForce III. I suggest persuading a good
friend who already owns ACoF to lend you his copy for evaluation.