Maybe if I needed gloves, I'd get frustrated with the smell your hands take on from dishgloves, but honestly washing dishes (particularly dishes that aren't precious) is pretty easy.
most of my dishes, which I have a lot of: finish eating/drinking, straight in, no sink stage.
The water in the dishwasher is being reused by the pump and sprayer while in cycle. The sump filter ensures no particles larger than the sprayer heads are being sucked up by the pump and pushed through to the sprayer jets, as tough food particles could damage the pump or get clogged into the sprayer heads.
No, when we got our fist dishwasher after our second child was born the dishwasher was like a miracle. We got so much time back each evening. It was life changing.
> same amount of soap exposure, and time at the sink, to wash dishes by hand.
What are you doing with your dishwasher that requires any soap exposure? With ours there is none. Scrape the dish into the bin/compost, stick it in the dishwasher. Every once in a while something will require a cursory rince with cold water before just to dislodge any stubborn food bits, but most of the time no prep is required.
Even living mostly by myself, I find it extremely useful and would strongly dislike not having one.
I suspect it might be more water efficient and energy efficient to do this instead of repeatedly heating up water, which takes 30s or so and wastes a lot of cold water / hot water that gets left to cool down in the pipes.
This list. Where are you going to cut your sweet potatoes? On a plate? How is this list of equipment sufficient to prepare and cook meals?
It's also great because I don't need extra space for a drying rack.
More useful than the washing machine?
As a married person with family we are doing laundry all the time anyway and so having it in the house is an advantage.
Now I own a house and have a small (3 person, 4 animal) household, and the thing runs daily. To me it makes a ton of difference; to the family I wouldn't be able to rely on the others, because the one is a teenage child and the other has debilitating joint problems.
I'd rather load / run / unload the thing every day than do things by hand again.
It's not that it is complicated, it's the amount of it. Your threshold may vary, but I find that with 3+ adults, or 2 adults and children (one or more) then I prefer the dishwasher.
To me a dishwasher is the equivalent of asynchronous execution: load it up, start it and come back a few hours later to clean and dry dishes. In the meantime I keep on doing whatever else I need to do, which is something probably more important than doing dishes.
Another thing that helps is having extra dishes and silverware. That way I keep on loading during the day and turn it on only once before going to bed (pots and pans that are not solid metal we still have to do by hand though).
If you live by yourself and only have to wash one bowl and one spoon every day, a dishwasher can be overkill.
But that's not the situation for everyone. If you have a larger family with babies, a dishwasher can be very useful. Baby bottles have many of different parts and washing them by hand can be time consuming, baby toys can be washed in the dishwasher as well...
And if you cook your own food rather than buying prepared food, you'll also be washing a lot of stuff: frying pans, pots, cutting boards, blender cups, etc.
I have had a dishwasher for years. I either don't buy stuff you can't wash in the dishwasher, or wash it in the dishwasher anyway because I have better things to do than pamper some random crockery.
Except my chefs knives which never get put in there, but they are the exception.
> you have to pre-rinse some things
For me (and we cook every meal) it's the minority. It's a rarity that we ever pre-rinse.
If I lived alone it might feel differently about having a dishwasher, but it was life changing when we got one after our second child was born. However, I wouldn't not get one for the reasons you listed.