In many ways, I am totally with you on this!
You highlight the difference between "taking the measurement" using some fundamental tool to transfer a spatial dimension, and the actual instrument with a scale, and a way of displaying it. Here too, we can either have everything sans digital, or a kind of half-way house of "mechanical digital", or the pervasive electronic "digital". The last one can have various ways of getting to the scale, from little rollers, all the way to moving interference optical aliasing between gratings. Given I need a headband magnifier assist to help me read a Mitutoyo vernier scale on a 0.001mm resolution micrometer, I do appreciate the big digital displays, but that's about the only thing I like about them.
I have a excellent condition Mitutoyo I got very cheap on eBay auction. It appears able to read to 0.001" easily enough, when checked against a full electronic digital micrometer good to 0.001mm ( about 40 millionths inch). I just love the thing. The space between the divisions allows an estimate to 5 tenths (inches). It tried against gauge blocks. It is simply repeatable, fast, no batteries, and a joy to use!
I am also attracted to the "mechanical digital" micrometer style, where the numbers show in digits on a display similar to a classic car mileage counter. Again - no batteries with that gadget! I have to store my electronic micrometers with the batteries taken out because they will inevitably run them down, even when supposedly "off". I am considering a DIY modification to add a hard on/off switch, when I can find a type small enough (yes - I do open these things up)!
I do have my little collection of tools like yours, though I am still looking out for a decent hermaphrodite divider with quick-release adjust screw, and very hard point. Plated against corrosion would be a plus!