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?