To add on to that a bit, joysticks and other potentiometer-based game controllers are definitely not the only way to control a robot. The most obvious way to control a robot would actually be to not control it at all; make it fully autonomous. For that there is definitely benefit in testing beforehand (this testing is actually quite possible, considering that the drive system on the robot changes little). However, there's also several forms of semi-autonomous control. One of them would be simply running an autonomous program and interrupting it as necessary. What I'm working on is a picture-based setup where you have a map of the field and all obstacles the robot can see, and you assign it a route or tell it to manipulate something on the field. If you're interested, I have the very beginnings at
http://sotabot.com/robot/programming.html The file is called "robot tracker", but I use some of the other VIs in it, and you might have to download them as well.
Good luck, and keep asking questions; you're clearing things up for us too.