MeSue, yah I hate the lack of a real clock and the no memory thing, also the 1 hr increment setting don't work with a Spa, too long.
You could try buying a cheap small UPS system from tiger direct. You can get them on sale at Microcenter and others for 25 bucks, for the button thing I have seen a ribbon cable in mine after modding it, you could solder in a couple of radio shack push buttons to replace the stock ones. Here is my SWG SPA mod :
I took mine apart (voided 90 day warranty thats long gone) and put a standard automotive SPDT bosch relay on the flow sensor. The relays coil is fed by a 9v power pack out side the generator plugged into a digital timer i set to run 8 mins each day INSIDE the SWG 1 hour window. So it comes on at 3pm runs a little, fails for low flow with a light, digital timer comes on, after a few seconds the SWG can now receive a signal and clears the Lo flow fault. 8 mins later the digital timer shuts off and I have all the clorine produced I need for 24 hrs. (Spa is always covered, set to 100 deg. runs circ pump 4 hrs daily starting at 3pm) Hope this helps someone