Hi there,

I think I've read enough posts here to say that all of the above options are perfectly playable, up to the point of it being a personal preference. You might, however, seek some advice how to set your key mapping best and make the experience as smooth as possible - there are numerous threads for it here.

I've played the game - well, both of them and a few expansions - with kb+mouse and haven't even thought of switching to anything alse.

But, and I think I can't stress this enough, if you are playing kb+mouse, do get some software to enable mouse wheel control. "X Mouse button control" is what's been recommended here. It's also what I use, since FS does not seem to recognize the wheel on its own.

Mapping the wheel up/down to +5%/-5% throttle is the best thing ever. It's intuitive, easily accessible and also eliminates the need for quite a few additional throttle control keys.
Plus - by map shift+wheel and alt+wheel to weapon cycling and you don't really need to move your left hand at all 90% of the time.

Again - this is all personal preference, and I'm starting to drift from the original question - but if you go for the kb+mouse, get the mouse wheel involved!