Well the problem is exactly what i stated. That controller doesnt have Vista Drivers. So it installed generic drivers to the system which caused your issues. From what i see they never released Vista Drivers.
You are trying to force a device that is not compatible to work on the system. So yeah it will be very buggy when you do that.
So yes it is you since you are trying to do something with the OS that it is not designed to do. You did not research to make sure that the controller could work. You did not check to make sure that there are drivers for Vista. You just plugged it in and expected it to work.
So yes i am saying that it is you, cause it is. Every OS operates off of drivers for the hardware. You are operating with drivers that are not proper for the system. Any OS, even XP which you say works so well, will falter when anyone tries to do this.
The reason why it worked in XP, shocking enough, there are working XP Drivers for your controller. hence why when using it, it didnt cause these issues.
Get a controller that has proper Vista drivers and you will not come across these issues.