Those still aren't that great. What I really want is a hard pad that detects via air pressure (like the arcade ones), resistive pads feel flimsy and stop working fairly quickly after heavy use.

An air pressure hard pad...well...you have to buy a DDR arcade unit. Those are going for $10k+ last time I looked. Then you have to find a place to put it....

The great thing about resistive pads is their mechanical simplicity. You can make any part in them yourself with supplies available at a hardware store, and conduct most repairs with basic hand tools. What sort of "heavy use" breaks these pads quickly? Are you playing with a sledgehammer? There's videos of people passing ITG14s on Cobalt Fluxes posted to YouTube this year. Cobalt Flux went out of business in 2011, so those pads are over a decade old, and you don't get good enough to pass 14s playing casually.

And if your definition of 'flimsy' is 'requires some maintenance every decade', note that the product we're comparing it to, the Oculus, has a lithium ion battery in it that's e-waste after less than half that time, and good luck getting spares in a market that discontinues its products every couple of years.

I'd like to see these, because when I went looking, they were a hell lot more expensive than that.

DDR is in this awkward space where it's either cheap and garbage, or expensive as all hell. The DDRGAME stuff, from what I've heard is somewhat pricy AND garbage.

https://www.maty-taneczne.pl/product-category/dance-mats-ddr... I've got one and know several people who have them and haven't heard any complaints about them.