It's straight up and down like that. Your best bet is to get a hori/some other 6 button layout stick, and just ignore the button inbetween shield and quick action. As for trying to get used to the q button with out actually having it, I'd say your best bet is to just use your 5th button for throwing, and keep activating/sparking with abc. Activating with abc is also kind of cool, because if you're doing it on wake up, you hold down back at the same time, so if you miss that 1 frame or what ever window you're not nuetral and eat the meaty.