No question about it. Not worth fixing by any stretch of the imagination. There maybe cheeper places to get it fixed but imo unless you could to the repairs yourself, no shop could do a good job at a price that would make it worth doing. If you're not picky about make or model, spend $2500 or more on something that's not the most stylish thing on the road, but not falling appart. Do a little research on the car you want to buy to avoid great looking cars that have known serious defects. 1993-ish Ford Tauris for example has a junk box automatic transmission. You could find a perfect shape one of those with 80k miles on it real cheep. Down side is the tranny has about a 99% chance of failing before it gets to 90k miles. Then you get to spend more on the tranny than you paid for the whole car...and still have a junk box transmission that will quit early. You can still find something to get you by for $2500 or so imo.

Recycle it. First, magnetrons typically are expensive -- and that's if GE (or whoever made it) didn't decide to "economize" by running out of (or getting rid of) parts inventory for that model so that there are none available. Second, even if you fix it, it's still a seven-year-old micro that doesn't have that many more years in it. Much as I hate the disposable slant to all of it, you'd have to be a pretty good treehugger to repair it (if, in fact, that's even feasible).

It's certainly repairable, and yes, I would do it. I replaced the belt on a friend's 25-year-old Whirlpool (1985 model) several months ago ($19.99 at a local dealer, which is $10 more than I would have paid via an online source, but I needed it ASAP). I'm in the process of refurbishing a 22-year-old Kenmore (Whirlpool) dryer that was given to me by a friend whose niece used it at college. It had been drying slow, they thought the heating element was going bad (elements either work or not, they don't typically deteriorate over time). I found the drum air outlet was half-clogged with impacted lint, due to the lint filter handle being broken and thus seldom cleaned. The major mechanical parts (bearings, rollers, idler, belt, motor) are all in fine condition. Can't say the same about yours, of course, without examination. You can look up parts diagrams at SearsPartsDirect.com

I've been in the repair business over 35 years and the reality is that the same stuff that screwed up a 1960's and 70's machine is the same stuff that screws them up today.. It's just today there is a public forum to voice complaints of how a simple nail left in a pocket caused minor/major damage to a washer. As to comparing building materials of machines from yesteryear to today you are correct they don't build them like they used to. Some in my industry might even say they are built better today. Did you ever wonder how they sold a top load washer in 1970 for $399 and now almost 40 years later they still sell top load washers for the same $399 ? Wasn't gas about .30 cents a gallon then ? A loaf of bread .25 cents. Price of a modest home $25,000. Wouldn't logic tell you that a major appliance price should have kept pace with other consumable items? Is it possible that technological advances have been able to keep the price of appliances static when they really should be costing maybe 5 times more? By the way I'm not seeing any shortened life expectancies either. Back when I started in the business a washer would average 12 to 14 years in life. I have not see this appreciatively change over the last 35 years. As always I see some machines that had a shorter life and I see some machines that have an extended life but the majority still seem to fall in to the 12 to 14 year category. The one constant is that the product user who properly maintains their machine tend to get the longest lives out of them and the users who don't check pockets, overload, use too much detergent, etc. tend to get the shorter lives out of their appliance. This is not really just my humble opinion but just my experience from working on a few hundreds of thousands of appliances.