Like the author, I've also found there are no great kitchen timers. I've had some ovens in the past that do an OK job, but my current one is terrible. I've been using a clockwork one for the past few years, but it does have the noted shortcoming of only ringing once.

The quasi-logarithmic idea is a good one. I would buy a simple one that just has a dial. No button required. But I agree with the other commenter that the 0-60 part would be quite useless for a kitchen timer. Better to have more resolution in the commonly used 0-30 minute range.