Are hall-effect sticks worth it?

On a device you plan to keep, yes — as a tiebreaker. Hall-effect sticks sense position with magnets and have no physical wiper to wear out, which designs out the most common cause of stick drift, the failure owners regret most. The honest nuance: hall-effect does not automatically feel better than a good potentiometer stick; deadzone tuning and module quality still decide feel. So it is not a reason to overlook a better device without it, but when two handhelds are otherwise close, hall-effect sticks are a real reason to pick one.