The sticks work as well as they ever did. There's a good reason why they've been continually produced for over 50 years! If you can imagine your trainer barely reacting when the wind hits it and just doing what you tell it to and nothing else, but retaining the stall resistant characteristics and slow flying ability, that's what flying a stick is like. If you've grown to depend on the trainer's tendency to roll out of a turn or save itself from sideslips you may have an issue with flying it, but if you've developed good piloting technique you'll probably find that a stick is actually easier to control.