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I would advise you to consider buying something higher quality (like a warthog) second hand especially since we're coming towards Christmas. Best stick I have ever owned is second hand (because they don't make cheap force feedback anymore).
The TWCS throttle is almost perfect as a budget throttle though as the paddle axis on it gives you a perfectly functional rudder without needing pedals. Also because the circuitry on it is fairly self contained you can mod it on to other things with basically zero effort.
I owned a Saitek x56 a few years ago, (back before they were bought out by Logitech), and the flight stick lasted about 30 days before it started drifting and jumping without a massive deadzone.
Again, this was years ago, so I can't speak for the new version. All I can say for sure is I am happy with my T.16000.
Something I completely forgot about but was reminded of in a video. I think the T16000m's throttle is pretty good because it has a good selection of buttons and axis, but it is a sliding throttle that runs on rails. It has a lot of friction and so sticks quite a lot. You can reduce this by taking the throttle apart and putting lube on the rails and/or completely changing the platform the throttle rides the rails on (such as replacing it with something that uses linear bearings) which help it feel better but they don't 100% fix the problem.
The biggest part of air to air refuelling is getting your throttle right. You can do this with a T16000m throttle with practice but it is bad at it. You mentioning refuelling specifically though this might be something worth considering for you.
The North American reseller is called VKBcontrollers. Is that the site you checked?
I have mine set with pretty much no tension and I can manipulate it using my fingers for fine control.
I guess you can back the screw out until it falls out though, so be careful if you get one.
Like any other enthusiast level hobby, everyone's journey is going to be different depending on their budget. Sometimes it just isn't possible to get something above a entry level setup and you just have to make it work. Sometimes a new player does have a bit of money to comfortably work with and with that comes the option to get something that you can more effectively grow into as a player as opposed to growing out of very quickly. There is no right answer that will apply to everyone.
With that being firmly stated, let's talk about your specific choice. Firstly. It is important to make clear that the T16000 HOTAS is very much intended to be a entry level HOTAS setup. The throttle itself is (in comparison to higher-end models) pretty basic with only a single throttle axis and a generally decent number of hat switches. It does have a pretty nice rocker style axis (which I consider vastly superior to stick twist rudder axis controls in terms of basic ergonomics and precision) and while it is a bit light on buttons and could certainly have used some controls on the base, it is a pretty solid choice for a new player who wants something that does the job adequately in the modern flight sim environment.
The stick is going to be a different story. Thrustmaster really should have designed a whole new stick that actually compliments the throttle and serves well as the stick component of a overall HOTAS setup but instead they opted to just repackage their standalone entry level joystick. The result of this choice is that you have a pretty decent throttle but a stick with far, far too few controls on the stick itself (especially hat switches) and controls on the base that kinda go against the whole HOTAS idea. As a whole, it isn't a absolutely terrible setup overall but the stick doesn't pull its weight.
This leads us to the big thing about the T.16000 HOTAS. As is the case with any enthusiast hobby where you have a wide spectrum of pricing, the cheap stuff is going to sell a lot better and a lot of people who have never owned (or even experienced) any other HOTAS setup will tell you that it is amazing, perfect, and that you will never really want anything else. That anything more expensive is "just for immersion" and doesn't really serve any practical function. Be mindful of this. The T.16000 HOTAS isn't bad for a entry level setup by any means but it is entry level for a reason and more expensive setups really do bring with them significantly more real, practical functionality/utility.
Now on to the X56. One important thing to note is that when Saitek (who in conjunction with MadCatz originally produced it) released the X55 (and later the slightly updated X56), it was envisioned to be a sort of "mid-range" option. This made sense in a way since Saitek's X52 and X52 Pro were getting rather outdated and lacked the controls to really keep up with the new wave of flight sims (DCS especially). The X56 (like the X55 before it) was a nice middle ground on paper. You had a split throttle setup with a ton of useful hat switches. You had a couple of rotary axis controls, and even some useful switches on the base. The stick was a similar case. You had plenty of hat switches, a decent amount of buttons, and since the stick was designed with HOTAS functionality in mind, it doesn't waste any buttons on the base.
On paper, the X55/56 (I will just say X56 from here on out) was a really, really good idea. In practice, it didn't work out quite as well.
Let's start with a bit of context before I go further. If you were to go online right now and ask people about the X56, you are going to very likely hear a lot about two specific things. The first is the "awful ergnomics" and the second would be how likely it is to break. Since we are talking about the internet (and people who form opinions based on what they see/hear online), it is important to consider that a negative review tends to circulate faster online than a positive one. Likewise, people are far, far more likely to post a negative review than any other type. To make matters worse, certain Youtube influencers hold a rather alarming amount of sway over the opinions of their fans and as such, sometimes a very popular opinion isn't always going to reflect the larger reality.
Since I already covered what I would consider (in my own experience) the positives of the X56, let me tell you some of the negatives that I have also experienced.
1.) The ergonomics are not amazing. I won't pretend that it is a massive, horrible issue for me because i have large hands and long fingers. I can reach everything pretty well even if it isn't the most comfortable setup I have owned. Some folks are going to tell you the ergonomics are objectively horrific because their favorite Youtuber said so and while I won't try to say the ergonomics are great, they are not going to be the same for everyone. Your mileage may vary and it isn't going to be a issue for everyone.
2.) Power consumption. When I first started using my X56 years ago, I found that I was getting a lot of mysterious "ghost inputs" from the throttle. For example. During one flight, I had a engine turn off. At first I thought it was a engine failure or something but then I noticed other controls that I had bound to buttons/switches on the throttle would trigger on their own. My first concern was that this was some sort of hardware failure. Perhaps a wire or two had become damaged or even the board had started to go bad. After a bit of research, I found that even Saitek had acknowledged that the X56 throttle consumed a lot more power than a typical USB on the back of your motherboard could consistently put out and as such, they advised plugging it into a powered USB hub. When I bought one and plugged it in, everything worked fine.
3.) The software. I can't exactly blame this on the HOTAS as much as I blame it on Saitek/Logitech. The software isn't very good and isn't really all that useful anyway. It is perhaps better to just install it and ignore it.
4.) Lack of a two-stage trigger. This is not a MASSIVE deal or anything but it is a odd omission considering how comprehensive the overall selection of controls tends to be. This can make certain DCS modules a bit tricky to use but it isn't something you can't overcome by some thoughtful binding.
5, Electronic component quality. This is a big one. Saitek (especially after Madcatz got involved) has always had a nasty habit of loading their peripherals full of really, really cheap buttons, switches, and potentiometers. Their internal mechanical elements (the actual mechanism of the stick and throttle axis controls) is usually fine (not great, just fine) but the electronics are just super cheap and don't really work as well as they should (even out of the box).
A good example of this is the rotary axis controls on the throttle. Right out of the box, you will notice they jitter quite a bit. If you go online and ask about it, someone will likely try to tell you that they are "dirty" and that they will "work perfectly when they are cleaned". This is false. It has nothing to do with dirt and everything to do with the low overall precision of the potentiometer controls themselves. Since they use really cheap ones, they don't actually have a ton of "positions" and as such, it is VERY easy to put the rotary in between two positions and as such, you will get a sort of "jitter" between them. It is something they could have avoided but didn't as a cost-saving measure.
Overall, the X56 isn't exactly likely to be as bad as some might think (especially after reading reviews on reddit or watching them on Youtube) but it is also not as good as it really should be. You are essentially getting a mid-range HOTAS in functionality but a entry level HOTAS in quality control. I have had mine for years and it still works as well as it did when it came out of the box. That doesn't say much but it does say that it isn't exactly absolutely doomed to outright catastrophic failure as some might believe.
Now let's talk about the precision question for both. You mentioned air refueling so let's start there. Both the T.16000 HOTAS and the X56 will enable you to refuel. They are both going to provide adequate stick and throttle precision to make it possible to refuel given enough practice and skill. To be bluntly honest, refueling is probably not going to be the most useful metric to judge with. The big thing is going to be overall versatility. When you are choosing a HOTAS, it is perhaps more important to really look at the kind of modules you want to fly and try to find a HOTAS the has enough of the right kinds of controls to really let you comfortably bind them and use them. This might mean opting for the X56 because it has a better HOTAS style stick and two throttles for twin engine jets. It might mean picking the T.16000 because are mostly going to focus on single engine stuff and don't need a ton of hat switches for the aircraft you favor.
The big thing when it comes to precision is that you really are not going to see a whole lot of difference in the entry level stuff. Hall sensors and the like are getting pretty common and the kinds of sensors that you are likely to find on a sub $500 setup are not going to be wildly different from one another. The only time you are really going to start seeing a significant bump in overall precision (across both stick and throttle) is when you start getting into the high end where the mechanical elements really start contributing to the precision in a way that is well outside the scope of entry level stuff.
This brings us to the thing I usually end up talking about in HOTAS related topics. Sometimes in order to get the "best bang for the buck", your specific requirements (which really should be your own requirements and not just what someone else told you is "good enough for them") might end up driving you towards something in a higher price bracket. It might mean that in order to get the functionality/quality you desire, you may need to spend a bit extra on a Winwing setup, a VKB stick and Winwing throttle, a VKB stick and Virpil throttle, or even a full Virpil setup (VKB does not yet make a full true HOTAS setup itself). This isn't to say you MUST spend that kind of money but if you have the budget to comfortably start looking at higher-end stuff, you might find that you can just skip straight to getting what you want and not just what one might think is "appropriate for a beginner" or some such sentiment.
Think of buying a HOTAS in the same way that your parents bought you pants when you were still very young. They didn't buy things that were exactly your size and instead bought a size or so up so you had room to grow. Sometimes it is a better idea to really shop around for the HOTAS that gives you all the room you will need to grow into so that you don't need to upgrade later down the line.
No, it's a hat. A hat is just 4/8 buttons that you functionally press by pushing the hat in a direction.
What you are thinking of is a mini thumbstick and they're rare on joysticks. I think Virpil and VPK do a few joysticks with them. Winwing's F18 joystick also if I remember right has a mini thumbstick replacing what is a small button on a real f18 stick. But even that while it's better than a hat isn't great.
What you want is headtracking, best known brand being trackIR. There are cheap and even freeware trackIR equivalents that do things like track your head through a webcam but there's so many of them I don't know what is and currently isn't supported.
Also if you're using a hat it's normally not a good idea to have the hat actually move your view like a mouse. It's normally better to have the hat be something that toggles pre-set views. IE if you pull down on the hat it will instantly snap to a 180 degree reversed rear view, then when you let go it returns to facing forward.