Yes, I'm likely going to add joystick support to the project I'm working on now! Personally, I prefer to play roguelikes with keyboard but I'm discovering I'm in the minority there! (diagonals aren't really a problem - it's just that the joystick sometimes isn't as accurate).
As for the AI assistance, I tried (and mostly succeeded) to do all the code myself and resist any vibe coding temptations. So I used it mostly for discussing approaches to problems, debugging, etc. But one topic in particular (breadth first search for pathfinding) I had to basically ask it to save me! Honestly, it has really accelerated my knowledge of assembly and I'm finding I'm much more independent now!