I'm using a Pi Pico now with a stepper motor (no video of it yet), and it's super smooth, indeed!

I was thinking about using a "SoftPot Membrane Potentiometer" to bring the chonkiness down a little, where the knob on the front would have a little nub at the back which would press against the strip and give you the same kind of effect (but then you need a way to drive that nub, of course).

I also thought about using the stepper motor and spiral combo out of a CD-ROM drive, maybe putting an encoder on it, but the spiral isn't long enough, so meh.

I'm still waiting for screens from AliExpress before I make an updated video, otherwise it'd just be, "look, it's smoother now, yay".