Modeshift may come in handy. It can be used to temporarily shift the right joystick or facebuttons into a dpad when one of the grip buttons like L4 is held down.

If dpad modeshift on right joystick is done I recommend setting it to 4 way no overlap to avoid diagonal inputs. This would allow dpad functions without having to take the right thumb off the right joystick. If tactile feed back is desired then modeshift on the facebuttons would work.

Finally got around to doing the replacement and it fit great. I just had to clip the wire that’s intended to be used for the capacitive stick function on the Deck before popping it on.

You can pop off the joystick after opening up the controller and replace it with either the 8bitdo joystick or steam deck joystick. Whatever is cheapest. This video shows shows the process https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH8CmCkltzY