The Saturn has the best controller ever built, end of discussion. 
Sure does. The Playstation D-pad is awful, and I'd much prefer to have six face buttons as well as shoulder buttons than four on the front and four on the top. A Saturn pad layout with a couple of analogue sticks would be perfect for just about any kind of game.
Nothing will ever beat the original Mega Drive rolling D-pad though. The one where the D-pad is connected to a stalk that passed through the PCB and presses back UP against the bottom of the PCB, rather than just pressing DOWN on top of it like all other D-pads do. This gives the pad more roll than other D-pad designs without turning it into a mini joystick on a pad.