[Arran]

I have found that using a wet rag or paper towel and a clothes iron does an effective job of removing dents, much better then putty, especially from poplar. I think your misgivings may come from the fact that the solid wood parts are now too dark and too opaque, it looks like they were originally a medium to medium dark, now they look like they are extra dark. If you used a dye based toner it should cover up the majority of the flaws without looking like brown paint. I'm not too sure of this but it looked like the solid wood parts were two toned themselves.
This is one of the reasons I'm so slow at refinishing things, If I don't like how they came out, and can't correct them in some other way, I strip them and start over again. There is a Philco battery radio that I attempted to refinish a few years ago that I think I may do that with, to the average eye it would look fine, but I don't really like the way it came out, it's too red.
Regards
Arran