This might be a freak coincidence but I'm willing to put it out there as I feel the pain everyone else is going through at the moment.
Anyway, I'm on a long haul and then surprise surprise, the "Flying without a joystick can be difficult" message popped up mid flight, so, with rage in full swing I went to the task manager and with my irrational anger selected FSX and right clicked by accident, then something odd happened, the very instance I hit the right click, In the background FSX briefly paused itself, grey textures flashed and the ENB shading I switched off earlier in the flight came back on which caught my attention, so I ignored the force quitting rage to see what was going and incredibly, my joystick was alive. I've deliberately unplugged my joystick and successfully re-connected over 5 times within the same flight to test it, the joystick is consistently working, this might be a fluke, I hope it's not. But try it out and let me know.
Crossing fingers! :( :mellow: