Ah, my wording comes from my misunderstanding of what constitutes a button matrix.

When I said "It's good to know that the matrix is necessary, anyway" what I meant was "It's good to know I need at least two pins for a single button". I guess I thought that would be a 1x1 matrix? lol...

Well I worked on my project at the weekend and it was hard. But I sort of got there in the end.

I had to replace some of my buttons with the smaller ones with 4 pins, and when I was finished I realised I had soldered my cables to the wrong legs... Which was fun reverting :P

I also realised I can't quite use the thumbstick I wanted to use as it's too big, so I've ordered a smaller one without the push button ability xD

All in all, I couldn't get it working due to crappy PCB headers/housing, my lack of a crimp tool and general incompetence on my behalf.

So now I'm waiting for new stuff this week and will try again with renewed vigor

Thanks again, all.