All that hardware and then just.. a chair.

The $20 chair is definitely a statement of priorities and my favorite part of the image.

No matter how expensive a home sim you make, it won't ever get be even a quarter of what an actual entry amateur plane costs to buy and maintain. It's not even the plane itself either, it's all the recurring costs like storage, maintenance, spare parts, fuel, certification fees, taxes, etc. The only cheap flight option for a recreational pilot is bushcraft light planes. And they will still cost more than the sim setup, while you'll only be able to fly it on certain places, during certain weather, at certain times of the year. The rest of the time you'll still have to pay all the storage and maintenance fees. Planes are incredibly expensive.

Maybe I just want to try that obviously terrible approach to check if I'm right about my skills you know?

A friend of mine makes force feedback controllers and he has like so much business from guys like that.