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He used Egyptian hieroglyphics, according to his hapless page-turner .

Not sure sometimes what you mean by "muscle memory" in these discussions.
Do you think of it as the same process as walking, where we don't need to think of anything and do all the necessary muscle, balance calculations without thinking about them?
If so, what would you call playing on the keyboard what you hear in your mind, which is the memorization of the elements of a piece. I.e. going directly from what you hear to the right keys?
It seems to me like two different processes and approaches.

I think the Beethoven story is that he was playing a concerto, didn't pass out the orchestra parts until just prior to performance (no copyright protection, feared having his work stollen), hadn't written out the piano part, but followed the convention of playing a composed work from the score, which consisted of an outline of the harmony and some hieroglyphics.

Muscle memory is getting used to the physical feeling of playing what is read off the score, which gradually replaces having to read so actively, note-for-note. This takes attention to consistent fingerings, hand position, etc. Thinking in terms of groups of legato notes, "from there to here" for leaps, detached notes fingered as if they were legato (if possible and practical) . . . helps.

It's quiet here, so I might as well recount that whole story of how Beethoven turned to Egypt for inspiration (well before Saint-Saëns ).

Beethoven's score for his Piano Concerto No.3 was incomplete at its first performance, which he gave himself.

His page-turner, Ignaz von Seyfried, recounted: "I saw almost nothing but empty pages: at the most, on one page or another, a few Egyptian hieroglyphics wholly unintelligible to me were scribbled down to serve as clues for him; for he played almost all his solo part from memory since, as was so often the case, he had not had time to set it all down on paper.
So, whenever he reached the end of some invisible passage, he gave me a surreptitious nod and I turned the page. My anxiety not to miss such a nod amused him greatly, and the recollection of it at our convivial dinner after the concert sent him into gales of laughter."

Another "story," and I truly you hope can elucidate on this, regards Beethoven's publisher's representative approaching him after a performance of his fourth piano concerto.

This, in regards my own thesis, is a very big deal, in regards actual performance practice.

Let me tell something about Olli Mustonen, who was mentioned in the article. He is supposed to be the most famous Finnish pianist.

30 years ago he came to our town and played Ravel G concerto in G major, when he was about 18, I was a small kid. He was then a "superstar", a sort of role model for every aspiring pianist, big or small. He was making all those fascinating choreographic movements. Instead of becoming a performing pianist I became as a teacher.

This winter he came back to town and played with orchestra with score in front of him. In fact many other piano solists played also with score this year.

Now how I'm supposed to demand my students to play without a score when they can say: Hey, our leading pianist plays with a score, then why should I bother to memorize?

Sometimes I regret never having made a "serious" study of music, and gone to conservatory, etc. But lots of times I realize I have made a serious study of music only that at my school there are a few more freedoms.