Welcome to the brotherhood of the Hog
As for switches, they can do whatever you like! But, to see what they're set to, you can open control settings (where you would go to set them) and toggle them each back and forth. If they are assigned to anything, it will scroll in the controls list to their assignment. Nice feature of the latest Beta/alphas of DCS.
As for rudder pedals, some hack wrote a half-arsed review of a set that's decidedly not half-arsed:
http://www.SimHQ.com/air-combat/mfg-crosswind-pedals.htmlCheers!