I thought that too. Dials were more irritating because you had to move it juuuuusst right to get the time you wanted. It didn't help that it had acceleration, and that as you got higher it used bigger increments.

The best UX I've ever experienced on microwaves are restaurant microwaves and Danby microwaves.

Restaurant microwaves have programmable buttons and a space beside them to write what time is programmed in (or what recipe it is for). If you want a different time than the preprogrammed ones, then you press a time button and then punch in your time.

Danby's work similarly, you press a digit and you get that many minutes and it starts immediately. You press the +30sec and it adds 30 seconds. Simple, efficient, discoverable. Admittedly anything beyond the basics is a bit of a train wreck, but I'm okay pressing 1 instead of punching in 50 or 55 and then start when I want a bit less than one minute.

My current microwave only starts when you press start. The +30sec button will save you at MOST 1 button press ever, unless you want to add 30s to an already running microwave, which is more than I can say for my last rotary, where +1min would only work if you used it to start the microwave. If you used the dial, it didn't work.

Appliances have TERRIBLE UX, and I could go on about the good and bad things I have seen and been frustrated by.