Update for everyone! This morning, I took a look at all the assignments relating to control surfaces as well as the autopilot. However, I couldn't see anything amiss except for button 3 being assigned to internal/external views. I changed the assignment to button 4, and that seems to have done the trick for some reason. As far as the joystick is concerned, there's no button assigned to the autopilot functions (that's all either mouse or keyboard-controlled). I took the ole Bandit out for a spin, and the autopilot held beautifully, even having switched from interior to exterior multiple times. I'm not sure if there's an unknown malfunction with the brand of joystick I have, or if it's because I'm just a noob at all this. But I'm absolutely relieved that all seems to be well for now. Thanks again everyone for your support. Cheers,
George
P.S. - for the longest time, I was quite comfortable with using just keyboard and mouse commands with FS9 since most of the panels I used were 2D. Having almost no experience playing FSX and migrating over to MSFS, it's been QUITE the learning curve! So needless to say, I really thought I was doing something wrong with the joystick, having never owned or used one prior.