I've been trying to get DirectInput to work with a joystick (mainly with a PS3 controller) but to no avil I just run into too many problems. I've been able to use the Keyboard and Mouse pretty easily. Is there any detailed example or tutorials out there that could help me understand how to use DirectInput Joystick function.

This doesn't really answer your question, but you really shouldn't use DirectInput for keyboard or mouse input. If you're doing it just for experience, go ahead I guess - but it's useless to do.