Stan: Understood. I'm all in for a discussion of alternatives.
For my application, where I want a small integral value between 1 and 10, it would be better to have a more certain form of feedback on what number that is exactly. The rotary position switch with numbers on it would be better, I think. A 7 segment display would be okay but then you have to drive it and that almost requires an MPU just to do the work.