It's still a digital control. It just pushes the buttons for you. I've not actually used one, but don't he PIDs toggle between temp and output or do you have to toggle it for every change in output?
You have to toggle it between the two modes and the UI on PIDS is NOT intuitive; it takes a couple seconds to switch the mode -you have to wait a few seconds so that it knows you want it to accept the value. -THEN you have to hold the % output button for a few seconds to lower it, then hold the button for quite a few seconds to decrease your output down from say 100% to 70% (on my system for 10 gallon batches, anyway), then wait a few more seconds for it to accept that value. -While you've had hot break spewing everywhere like an erupting volcano the whole time!
-Then after not brewing for a couple months you forget which button to push to switch modes / aren't 100% sure, OR there's a really magical setting that some how gets set on my PID every 6 months or so that prevents it from switching modes. -Then you have to go get a printed copy of the manual or find it on the interwebs and find the esoteric, poorly named setting that enables you to get it out of temp mode and back into % output mode and then perform the above process. -Again, pretty ridiculously over complicated for just needing to turn down the output on your boil kettle to prevent boil over. People really want to believe more expensive and more features is better, but its definitely not always the case (switch to tri-clamps on all your equipment and see how much faster / easier they make your brew day).
You want form to meet function; dial control does that perfectly for a boil kettle.
There's so much technical geekery and desire to be "more like the professionals" in Home Brewing, but what we REALLY, REALLY need right now is professional design in home brew equipment. By that I don't mean designers to make our breweries look prettier; I mean someone who can take a cold hard look at combining form and function so that our breweries work easier and enable us to focus on making better beer.
Centralized vs. decentralized control, as is the case with most modern electric brewery setups gets us farther away from that ideal.
TriClamps vs. quick disconnects, get us farther away from that ideal.
Well planned plumbing gets us closer to that ideal (if you're going with a single-tier design).
3 Tier Gravity fed systems get us closer to that ideal.
Tippy dump mashtuns definitely get us closer to that ideal.
Well planned CIP systems which includes bottom draining vessels, gets us closer to that ideal.
Well designed hop separation is hugely important, too (hop spiders are pretty hard to beat in terms of simplicity and cost).
I think there's a reason that BIAB has exploded in popularity and part of it is that you can make pretty good beer relatively easy with minimum space and equipment and some of that homebrewer bling that people love.
Adam