The point is the old lamented machine you couldn't not do it right. Pan encrusted with 3 day old spaghetti sauce? Toss it in and it came out clean. Roommate burned rice in a pot? toss that in after. Comes out clean. Wife's pot and dish with dried mac and cheeze? Yeah also come clean.
And yeah if it was just a light wash you could set it to 'low'
Also that machine I installed in 1995 and it finally died in 2006. Friends buy expensive European machines and invariably some plastic part dies after 6-8 years. Low end machines are worse.
> On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
– Charles Babbage
How can a dishwasher possibly be designed to discourage people from doing things to the dishes before they put them into the dishwasher?
It's (potentially mandated) poor design if it's so easy to misuse.