I am an employee of Whirlpool Corporation and this is my personal opinion.
They are the new Maytags! They are fantastic!
The Deep Water cycles (Bulky/Towels, Powerwash, Delicates, Mixed) do have true temps. If I put it on hot, my wash is 130F (that's what my water heater is set to) and warm is around 95F.
The lack of water level switch doesn't bother me at all. I pretty much only do full loads anyway.
The cycles are quick and the machine is quite gentle. Very little lint in my dryer's lint filter on loads coming from this machine.
The dryer does have an end of cycle buzzer.
Bob, the boy you met at the 2002 wash-in grew up! I got a bachelor's degree in product design engineering technology and now I work for Whirlpool in vertical axis laundry engineering.
My mom is doing great! She's taken to flipping houses in recent years and is getting ready to retire after selling a couple more. It's fun to help her buy whole kitchens and laundries for the houses she remodels!
