It works ok for me, because I tend to be scatterbrained and if I wanted 2nd Rinse for one load, I would probably then have 2nd rinse for every washload for a year before I realized that was still selected. The preset settings are for the most part what I use anyway, so I seldom have to change them. For example, Normal/Casual temp is Warm/Cold and Heavy Duty temp is Hot/Cold.
As I said, I tend to be scattered--maybe DISTRACTED is a better word--so I'm thrilled to have a washer that makes sound decisions for me when I'm not paying attention. I'm ashamed to say that with the old washer, many times I'd realize that I'd washed the whites on Cold or the darks on Hot or stuffed it and had the water level set on Small. I guess the ideal situation would be if the washer had a way to set it to EITHER provide default settings OR use your last settings. I'm really not normally such an idiot, but with the washer and dryer in the kitchen, laundry always seems to coincide with fixing dinner, loading the dishwasher, yelling at the dog, etc.
Anyway, the model we got was the only one available but it sounds like there are more HE2 models on the way. Once there IS a "line", I think ours would very definitely be middle-of-the-line. There will HAVE to be fancier machines than ours.
T.