I reinstalled everything...Windows 8...

And now the controllers work properly...

Thanks Raedek. Just tried both suggestions you made. I am unable to map (within Arma3) any of the joystick axis or buttons manually. Also, the generic joystick option didn't work either -- the joystick commands are populated ..but greyed out (not bright white) and attempts to manually map those, doesn't work.

I'm at a loss!

I just tried .58 version. The labels on the controller config screens have now reappeared. The joystick, though, is still unresponsive.