(I suspect) much of a valve's rad-hardening is due
to sheer size,
It is.
I am not convinced. I remember reading that the tiny
field-emission
vavles etched into a silicon chip (which, BTW, are smaller than the
mean free path of an electron in air at stmospheric pressure so they
don't need to be evacuated) are considerably more radiation hard than
conventional transistors on the same chip.
Without knowing how the size of the miniature valve compares to the
size of the conventional transistor you're comparing it to, this does
not speak to the question of whether rad-hardening is due to size.
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