Controls are definitely bad - clunky, cumbersome, unresponsive at times and over-complicated. For the level of polish Rockstar games have, it beggars belief that they still have such difficulty with implementing refined and user-friendly controls. GTA V was a big improvement for them but by no means perfect but RDR2's controls feel even worse than that years later. Not sure if a part of it is engine-related but certainly the layouts could've been done simpler and better.
The other day I went to hitch my horse in a town by pressing the triangle button but the option disappeared in an instant and replaced itself with 'Rob' because an NPC got in the 'hitbox' so instead of parking my horse, I ended up saying to the guy 'gimme all your money' instead and all hell broke lose! I was only going for a haircut and beans FFS!