Punchline? Rotary dials are great. Find number, stick finger in hole, rotate until it stops, release. The only real thinking involved is to figure out which digit you want.
Man, sure a lot more than just punching a button, amirite? Most of the time, yup, and the rotary is an antiquated method of digit input. But because rotary is not on/off, it is more forgiving. I am unable to come up with a suitable explanation without putting a rotary dial in front of you, but you could change your mind while you were dialing. Or more accurately, you could fix your mistakes. In the midst of dialing, some correction was possible. For instance, "oops, that's '3', not an '8'. Well, even if you've already stopped at 8, you can keep going and get the 3 instead (doesn't work the other way around).
Anyway, I'm not saying I miss them, but rather to agree that TFA is missing the things that make rotary dials more than just a circular version of a 10-key.
I think there might be some kind of lesson here. Rotary dials might be a usability punchline right now, but there is actually a lot of thought that went into their design which made it quite usable. I'm sure similar things can be said about other old interfaces.