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Liking Analog Meters Doesn't Make You a Luddite (Video)
Chris Gordon works for a high-technology company, but he likes analog meters better than digital readouts. In this video, he shows off a bank of old-fashioned meters that display data acquired from digital sources. He says he's no Luddite; that he just prefers getting his data in analog form -- which gets a little harder every year because hardly any new analog meters are being manufactured. (Alternate Video Link)
There's plenty of analog meters being made every year. Just look at any automobile dashboard. They experimented with digital dashes back in the 80s and quickly abandoned them. Even Teslas, which have an LCD screen in the dashboard, have analog meters; they're just done in software, no different that a phone or PC that has an icon of an analog clock face.
Interestingly, though, modern cars with analog meters actually have them driven digitally; the indicator is really a servomotor, driven by digital information over a vehicle bus.
The reason analog instruments still prevail is because they can be interpreted easily at a glance (by looking at the position of the needle, rather than reading numerals and having to decide if those numbers are within a good range), and also because they show trends and rates of change which digital gauges do not.
But your point is just about the GUI.
Digital meters can be made to look Analog and provide that exact same feedback.
For a super stupid example, the windows task manager in the sys tray shows CPU load via a veritcal bar, exactly like an Analog vertical meter would.
So it seems to be less about the medium and more about the designed controls.
Maybe not, but it does make you evil.