Rock Band guitars used hall-effect switches on the strum bar, and even used only as a switch I can assure you from experience that while the magnets might have

Rock Band guitars used hall-effect switches on the strum bar, and even used only as a switch I can assure you from experience that while the magnets might have effectively longer lifespans than the rest of the components, they only work as well as, well, the rest of the components. A hall-effect sensor on a mass-manufactured gamepad or joystick is still only as good as the gaskets, diaphragms, and bearings. If a pot for positioning is dying on a stick before the buttons, throttles/trim levers, etc., that seems to be an indictment of the pot's quality more than anything. For instance on the Switch joycons, hall-effect sensors in theory might've reduced stick drift, but if oil and crumbs and junk are falling into the electronics because the diaphragm sucks, the sensor's the least of your problems. Hall-effect sensors are great for DIY sticks, though, just for the granularity you get for free and the ability to use off-the-shelf magnets for any config. Even then I still see a lot of pots in DIY designs just for the relative simplicity of the signal.