A non-optical sensor based solution would require other sensors to calculate the relative position of the solar cooker oriented to Earth as well as calculate the elevation. Your solution is turnkey that you just slap down and it does everything needed without external input beyond solar radiance.

Also, a whole bunch of your approach has many other applications with only very minor tweaks. I like what you did.

If you replaced it with something that requires connectivity, then your first approach may have been a better design if even if it didn't work out quite right the first time.

Still an impressive feat. The fact that you thought of improvements afterward does not diminish that you made a thing, with some amount of success, more sophisticated than anything 99.9% of humans will make in their lives.