Finally got to see the new Miele 4840 yesterday. It is a nice machine. Is $1800 worth of nice? Don't know. They had it plugged in so I got to play with the controls. The Mastercare feature was nice, probably worth the extra $200. I didn't see any obvious flaws in the workmanship, and the honeycomb drum looked great. Interestingly, the matching dryer drum has a honeycomb pattern emossed into it as well, but the salesman just kind of laughed when I pointed that out. We agreed it was probably just to match the washer drum pattern. They had a stack of brochures inside the washer, but the installation/operator's manuals were nowhere to be found.
I was a little puzzled that the dryer brochure shows only one way to vent the dryer, out the lower left rear... which would not work for my laundry closet (a dryer placed there must vent out the left side, or straight down from the bottom of the dryer).
I wasn't a real fan of the control system, which hides any information about actual water temps (other than "hot, warm, cold, etc) or spin speed rpms (Other than "max, medium" etc). But I suppose most consumers would prefer a simplified interface.