To counteract the sense of gloom, one thing I did discover that gave me immense joy, that’s really intuitive on the left hand side for those used to fps/MMO usage, is to have throttle bound to mouse wheel, yes - BUT, the game also has a dirty little secret: “thrust forward” and “thrust backward” which you can bind to W and S. This is much more like moving in an fps, i.e. you hold down W and so long as you hold it down, you pump yourself forward, and when you take your finger off W you stop (or revert to whatever speed your throttle is set at). This, in combination with setting 50% speed to a key you would normally use for “autorun” in an fps/MMO, makes it almost identical to fps/MMO, so you can take advantage of that ingrained muscle memory there. I also have a convenient key bound to 100%.
This means you are in the blue zone (your “autorun” key at 50%) automatically most of the time, and you use W and S to intuitively pump yourself faster or slower than that when you need to, or just use a keypress to instantly boost to 100% when you need to. So you very rarely need to actually use the throttle (mouse wheel) as such, but it’s nice to have there.
I also have thrust left and right bound to A and D and thrust up/down bound to Space and Ctrl (which would normally be “jump” and “crouch” in an fps/MMO, so again, intuitive for that old muscle memory).