And obviously, that really does not translate well to keyboard and mouse gameplay.

RDR 2 plays really well on mouse + kb. Once I changed the horse camera controls in the options so I can freely rotate my mouse around without the horse changing directions, even the horse felt good despite the digital inputs.

I don't mind the gamepad controls too much either, ultimately I think rockstar just doesn't really follow "modern game design template" and they do their own thing. This doesn't just apply to controls but to basically everything. It doesn't always net the best possible result, like with the default sprinting, but i respect their insistance on approaching game design differently.