I was going to make a joke about preferring tube microwaves for their superior warmth but you got there first.

"Solid state" was the block chain of the 70s.

Well, CRT televisions were sold as being 'solid state' too. In this case, he's referring to the touch-panel timer with digital display which replaced mechanical timers.

Of course, he should have said that it has solid state controls, but that's marketing.

I have had little respect for the digital panels because they pathetically try to dress up what's underneath. That is why ovens have evolved to let you mash buttons to work them and setting the power level is annoying because it is peculiar to individual models. Settings specific to the weight and type of food, some special defrost function are representative of an ideal that has always been practically just out of reach. However in the next 15 years the typical high-voltage power supply for the magnetron will increasingly be an inverter type allowing more useful integration with programmable electronics and maybe even heat and food properties sensors. I have not seen a new oven for sale in a few years with mechanical dials, so I am thinking also that it may no longer be cheaper to make them that way.
I don't know for what perceived demand-- perhaps to have in one's car-- but they might be getting much smaller, as I saw a few years ago they are producing 5.8GHz (or 5 point whatever) magnetrons, which look the same as the 2.45GHz ones in all ovens except I guess the dimensions are all about 1/2. So there may soon if not already be tiny shoebox sized ovens using these.

My family's first Microwave in the late 1980's was from Tappan and it did not have a turntable dish. Hidden above a dropped plastic ceiling in the oven cavity was a simple contraption of radial vanes that spun like a pinwheel, blown by the same fan that also cooled the magnetron. This worked as well as a turntable, was more aesthetic, but the plastic ceiling partially melted when I set it to cook something for 40 instead of 4 minutes. I continued to use the oven unaffected afterwards until someone else threw it away.

They're not usually good for actual cooking (except steaming broccoli), but I use mine all the time for melting, softening, thawing, and re-heating.

Each tool has its own job.

I use one all the time (every day) for cooking kale, legumes, fish fillets, potatoes and skinless-boneless pieces of chicken. Also eggs (scrambled in a coffee mug with mushrooms/cheese etc.) I actually have 2 microwaves in order to cook 2 of these things simultaneously. Reveling in the efficiency I still consider it crude or arrogant to prepare food this way for those other than myself. I will often cook directly on the provided glass dish and then eat off of it (an extraneous dish saps cooking power and often gets too hot to handle.)

A handy trick is a cup of flour, an egg, a teaspoon of baking powder, stir it up, zap for 45 seconds, and you’ve got an instant personal sized loaf of bread. Slice into little pucks and you’ve got a great little snack. That’s basically the only thing I use my microwave for.

That's the only thing I'm going to use flour and baking powder for!
thanks, cog
thog