But with the added layer of animations post interaction it can feel really cumbersome and disconnected. Imagine if each key on the keyboard had an associated delay and animation and you can see how it might impede a user's progress in other scenarios as well.
I think it is a case of the rule of cool winning during design and development, and then because the devices and sites we use become daily use items we end up growing tired of the mounting small inconveniences.
Imagine if every time you opened your wallet you had to wait a few seconds for it to slide open from a button press, rather than it just opening as you manipulate it.
You lose a slight bit of control over the situation and it's timliness and that adds up over the course of long time use until eventually you throw out the wallet and buy a more rudimentary one that "just opens for crying out loud".
There are also options to reduce animations in both macOS and iOS, although I'm not sure if the calculator responds to that.
But you're absolutely right about these non-responsive 2D stove controls. I have o multiple occasions given up on trying to use stoves at friends' places because I was actually unable to turn them on. The worst sin is obviously that there's no affordability indicating a touch has been registered. But on top of that, they somehow tried to sixth-normal-form these buttons. So you have one button rotating through functions (up, down, off, fire fire fire!), and one other button to choose the burner. Or something like that.
I really wouldn't know anything to make them worse. Maybe Clippy.