Use a clean arcade token and a bunch of artist's tape dots over the dpad. Use about 6 of them on each arrow key and clean the quarter very good. For added effect, just cut a contruction board crosspad over the quarter and that's what you have basically.
I learned about this from the 1up show but I added the cross on the quater bit but they used artist's tape as a dpad mod as well.
You shall save a lot of grief since many of us Alpha 3 players would not want to part with the dpad for the world.