Welcome to my world
There have been many discussions here in the group about balling up of bed linen in front loaders (yes, a few started by Moi), and the upshot was far from settled.
For every person who reported issues, others claimed the thing never happens. Some fold their linen before going into the washer in various manners, others have various other "tricks". Long story short one doesn't have that kind of time each wash day to perform origami folding on bed linen before it goes to the wash.
Will say it seems crisp bed linens, that do not compact down much (if at all) during the wash need smaller load sizes than say flannel or even muslin.
Fitted sheets? The person who invented them ought to have been lined up and shot. *LOL*
One finds invariably things get caught in pockets of fitted sheets and when washer goes into spin things become unbalanced.
Will say that under loading seems to give better results with most front loaders have used. The Miele doesn't like this as it tends to create unbalanced loads. AEG/Lavamat thanks to more refined electronic controls does a better job. However things still tangle/ball up in that machine and often have to stop, unlock then open door, untangle and restart.
Besides speed, one reason for seeking out a wringer washer, and or doing linens with a tub and mangle is simply to get on with things. Rather than deal with long cycle times, and the near certainty that things will become unbalanced during some portion of cycle.
Happily our bed linen isn't very soiled so doing them in tubs or even the wringer isn't a huge deal.
Other thing one does is simply use the Miele's PP cycle (no spins between rinses), and after draining final rinse water chuck things into spin dryer or use one of my mangles. This is especially true of the Miele, where after spending >$300 to repair the suspension, and sums a or so before that on new shock absorbers, am doing all possible to baby the machine.
