We will have perfected it when you can again expect them to last 20 years without failure and at failure there is a diagnostic code that tells which reasonably priced part needs to be replaced.[1]

They are probably optimized now, but not for the consumer's benefit.

Also, people's thoughts on dishwashers vary hugely with the number of people in the household. When I am alone I never use a dishwasher. When in a household of four, always.

EOM

[1] As near as I can tell from family experience, the difference in reliability between the high end brands and the normal brands is that the repair parts are more expensive on the high end.

My dishwasher was broken for months - never got around to fixing it - and the reality was, it didn't take noticeably longer to clean up after a meal or after a day's meals. Might be different if you have a big family, but from what I remember growing up, the actual washing of dishes was the least time consuming part of cleaning up.

Our 4 year old dishwasher was just recalled because it has, apparently, a habit of catching on fire unexpectedly.

"Perfected" is a tricky word. :-D

They were perfected, until the new buyers wanted to connect their smartphone to it.