Dishwasher saves a lot of water and energy compared to hand wash if you run it with more than a small number of dishes.

Hm. It's strange when someone else's objective experience is so different from one's own. The house I'm renting has some cheapo dishwasher, and it does a great job. Only uses as much water as a toilet flush, too.

For 30 years I suffered from terrible dishwashers, but then I moved into a house which has a Miele. It's like night and day.

My Bosch dishwasher has been excellent. It wasn’t cheap but it does a great job and is dead silent (can barely hear it sitting in the open concept living room just a few feet from the kitchen).

The only problem is that for whatever reason the power boxes required to wire them up for hardwired setups are bad and have a tendency to melt, as you’ll find reports of online. I’ve had this happen once already and intend to have an electrician convert my hardwire into an outlet so I can plug it in with a regular cord and not need the box.

Technology Connections’ video on dishwashers will change your life.

https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04

Ever since I switched to powdered detergent and started throwing a pinch of powder in the bottom of the tub in addition to filling up the main dispenser halfway, I have not had a single dish come out with a piece of food on it.

I also recommend disabling any “auto” features of dishwasher has.

The only caveat to this video: don’t fill up the detergent dispenser all the way with powder, go about halfway. He corrects this mistake in his follow-up video, which I also recommend.

I actually have, but with the caveat that you have to know how to place the dishes in the thing such that they don't block the flow of water. Not a burden once you know how to do it, but might initially take some time to figure it out, if just looking at the thing doesn't make it obvious.

I used I think 5 dishwashers of 3 different brands in my life to-date. All 5 did a good job.