jefequeso: I think in the case of input, it can be frustrating to suddenly be made really aware of the disconnect between you and your character, because you have to think about controls that are usually subconcious like movement and aiming. I agree that some people are just unwilling to adapt to something different, but for some of us WADS + mouse is so natural that trying to do anything else feels like trying to play while hanging upside down. You can get used to it, but it's not comfortable.
I'll admit that I've also been spoiled by the plethora of source ports for Doom-era FPSs. For the most part I can just stay in my comfort zone without having to suck it up and learn to deal with keyboard controls. That's probably something I should fix soon, since there are still a few games I want to play that don't have good ports.
I can see that. I suppose it's somewhat similar to those instances when the Angry Video Game Nerd points out that a game he's reviewing uses "B" instead of "A" for jumping, which seemingly screws with his mind.
Personally, I don't have any major problems of switching between full-keyboard controls for old "2.5D" FPS games and WASD+mouse for later "actual 3D" ones, maybe because those feel like two distinctly different subgenres to me.
Also, mouselook in Doom always feels... wrong to me, as it's always pretty noticeable that games like that weren't designed with it in mind, even in the Build-engine, it was obviously included as a mere afterthought. It doesn't help that those graphics don't respond well to looking up or down.
When comes to playing them with the keyboard, I basically treat it like a large gamepad or something akin to those arcade-sticks. It gives me direct control over the character and I never seem to lose "immersion" over it.
I know some people like to use the sort of mouse controls that were included in Wolfenstein 3D or vanilla Doom, where you actually move with the mouse. Granted, that does give you a better ability to turn and aim, but it always felt a bit off to me. Kind of as if you're controlling the character with a remote.
Granted, some old games may profit from the "modern" standard controls, like Daggerfall, which has fully customizable controls, probably for a reason.
I certainly don't have anything against WASD+mouse, I play lots of games that way, but I feel that relying entirely on such standards (not just when it comes to controls, mind you) results in a loss of flexibility and variety for a lot of games. Well, that and I guess I'm kind of annoyed that nearly every old game is labelled as "clunky", just because it doesn't adhere to modern expectations.