OTOH, gimme a top-loading dryer any day!
I'm enjoying this thread. For the most part, it has confirmed what I have believed all along: plain old physics suggests that a front loader, using gravity and a comparatively small amount of water, keeps the dirty laundry moving and soil emulsified and suspended without a lot of idiotic mechanisms and BS. Even better if the machine has an internal heater.
These arguments also connect to a previous thread that indicates that Americans have a strong preference for anything Top-Loading, most probably because that's what their parents had. I know one friend who's no dummy who chose an inadequate contemporary Top-Loader because "that little porthole that I'm supposed to stoop down to load and unload the machine would drive me crazy". I think for most consumers you put the clothes in the machine, add the prescribed products, push the button and at the end you've got clean clothes. I don't think most people these days really care if their laundry is as clean as it could be.
To paraphrase Crystal Allen: " If you throw a blouse into a working washing machine, what's to keep it from getting done?"
I must admit, even though I collect and covet all my vintage Top-Loaders, I use them less and less as daily drivers, especially now that I have the Miele hooked up and working. It's superior in every way except capacity, although, for my needs, there are very few loads that need to be done in the 1-18 and it's beginning to show signs of age. I can load the Miele with laundry and all the additives needed and walk away from it knowing that in 24 short hours (kidding) my laundry will be as clean and as damp-dried as can be.