It can be tough to win those first fights, regardless of controls. As was discussed a while ago (possibly in the N900-specific uqm thread), there's a fair amount of strategy involved such as choosing the right ship and tactics. This becomes less of an issue later in the game when you can (if you choose) soup up your flagship into a killing machine and bruteforce any fight (except the last one...)

I still have the idea of modifying the lander controls on the todo list, but if you have any ideas for improving the ship controls, i'd be interested in hearing.