"But the newest one knows the difference between three different kinds of popcorn, knows how to actually 'bake' a potato, or even three of them, and will also defrost without parboiling."

I can do that by using it right. I can also adjust the car seats and mirrors myself, turn the courtesy lights on and off myself. I'm just a dinosaur I guess, after all, how many people do you know who can do a longhand square root ? No batteries for the calculator ? No problem.

About the popcorn. I bought a used waterbed from a buddy who came over to help set it up. First he says I'll never be able to fill it with warm water but I did, two hot water heaters :-) So he has his olady and kids over as well and brought microwave popcorn. Did I mention my microwave's nickname was Chernobyl ? So it says 5 minutes and it got stuck in for 5 minutes. Opening the door we discovered that it was literally on fire. I said "I think it's done".

And then the shop microwave from years before, you know a 12 cut 16" pizza ? Extra large ? Well I could slide a whole one in there including the box. Talk about designing a microwave ? It is not the easiest thing in the world to make those waves spread over that much area, and yes I said area. Notice the bigger ones are also higher, while a wider and deeper interior would be more useful. Easier to design. They are rated in cubic ft., so the numbers look marvelous, but how often do you stack stuff on top of each other in the microwave ? "Oh, but it takes up so much counter spacer !", whine and bitch, whine and bitch. Look, when you figure out how to build a TARDIS like Dr Who, we will use that technology so that in the space of a coffeepot you can nuke a moose, OK ?