Quality rice from the microwave is, I think, dependent on the wattage.  My 1100 watt microwave does an excellent job of cooking rice.  Total time is about 15 minutes, and I stop and stir the rice when there is still ten minutes left to cook.  I use a covered bowl about 4 inches deep, and occasionally the water boils over the edge onto the turntable; that's the only problem.  I seldom cook more than 1 cup dry rice at a time; were I doing more I would need a deeper container.  When cooking Rice-a-Roni white and wild rice I have to use 1/4 cup less water or it would come out too wet in the microwave.

only instant rice. regular rice i use mainly for spanish rice and that still has to be cooked on the stove.

Well, I always like a good story and a good imagination makes it even better. But for those that really want to know what "Converted Rice" is: Converted rice or parboiled rice is white rice prepared from brown rice that has been soaked, steamed under pressure to force water-soluble nutrients into the starchy endosperm, and then dried and milled. Parboiled rice is less sticky and conserves more of the nutrients (especially Thiamine) in the grain when the rice is boiled and cooked. I don't think I ever cooked rice from scratch in the microwave but warming it up with a microwave works great. If you notice a lot of these Chinese restaurants don't have the popular metal handle on their carryout boxes as they did in the past. I think this must be for microwave use. I usually add a few drops of soy sauce "before" I warm up the rice.

A while back I was making dinner with a friend of mine and we were microwaving some Uncle Ben's Converted Rice. My friend wanted to know, since Uncle Ben's Rice is converted, what was it converted from? An e mail from an impeccable source of knowledge, Dr Science (whose motto is I know more than you do from Duck's Breath Mystery Theater), revealed the following: Uncle Ben was one of the first Unitarians, a dogma free religion that pretty much lets you believe whatever you want, and will defend your right to believe it. Before he adopted this remarkably even handed approach to matters of faith, Uncle Ben was an elder in the Church of the Practically Insane, a mind control cult that ran a string of nudist camps in Northern Arkansas and Southern Missouri. The rice connection came from a bet he once made with an agnostic. Uncle Ben claimed he was such a good preacher that he could even convert rice. His attempts to convert a bowl of white basmati rice caused the personal epiphany that led Uncle Ben to abandon his current belief system and embrace the relative tolerance of Unitarianism. Thank you, Dr. Science.

I haven't done this personally, but I remember my mom getting this microwaveable dish specifically for cooking rice, and it came out perfectly, every time, when before she always had it either a bit under- or a bit over-done.

I've never even thought about cooking rice in the microwave. Somehow I don't think it would work right.