I was thinking up Christmas gifts for my parents, and I recently got a raise at my job so I thought I'd get something that doesn't scream "last minute" for them this year

SO I thought about getting a TV-based solution instead. This would certainly be more cost-effective and flexible. I thought about one of those Flashback joystick things, but the game selection on those isn't exactly what I'm looking for, not to mention it's only single-player and you are limited to whatever is inbuilt (I'm not about to build a custom enclosure and solder a bunch of wires for a cartridge slot only to have it break, sorry). MAME crossed my mind too, but it's altogether just a pain in the ass for someone working full-time to have to muck around with ROM sets, control schemes, and so forth, not to mention the fact that joysticks are probably pretty expensive for it.
Naturally the next thing I considered was an old Atari console, specifically the 7800. From what I cursorily remember the 7800 had all the best arcade ports, and Google tells me that it has joystick controllers. The only thing that concerns me is the faithfulness of these ports and whether you can hook 2600-style joysticks and paddles up to it, both of which are not readily answerable via Dr. Google (or at least so far as I can tell).
So my question to you, forumites, is this... in terms of simplicity, game selection, arcade-style controls, and faithfulness to the originals, is the 7800 the best choice for the early-1980s arcade experience at home?
Thanks for any help you guys have, and you rock!