I completely understand your feelings Bruce. While I can't speak from experience because I've never owned or really gotten to use a front loader (except from the nasty ones the few times I've had to go to a laundromat), I can certainly see front loaders being the most gentle on fabrics of all machines, however, because I've been lucky enough to be able to "hotswap" machines and use the WTW4800 agitator washer, and the Maytag Atlantis, in succession with the BravosXL while using the same dryer and same detergent/additives, I did notice a substantially heavier amount of lint in the dryer's lint filter. This was with loads half the size of what the BravosXL handles on a typical basis simply because of capacity limitations of the two agitator machines. In theory this should mean that the HE TL actually causes half the linting the other machines do. In addition to that, I found myself having to cut loose strings from towels and other items when washed and dried from the agitator machines, where I've had to do very little of that at all with the BravosXL, and it's typically only with towels that have fringe on the edges, or towels that are nearly as old as I am. It was also actually shocking to me just how drastically different the cleaning results were between the machines. The two agitator machines failed miserably with staining of kitchen towels and dish cloths, as well as underarm stains, that the BravosXL removes on a regular basis with no manual pretreating. Twice the detergent, twice the water, half the capacity, yet couldn't get rid of grease spots and sauce stains the first time. Throw in drying time being doubled as well, and I was more than ready to go back to the HE washer.
I'd also agree with you about older top loaders, even the worst of them, doing an adequate job. A Frigi-WCI Franklin transmission washer was nothing compared to the Maytags, Lady K belt-drives, or KitchenAid DDs at the time, but they still did an adequate job despite being hated by some. There will always be better and worse when it comes to any product. In that light, I'll likely never touch an LG/Samsung built HE top-loader. There are some people who love them, but from my observations watching a full cycle video and hearing from those who own them, the load seems to simply swish back and forth, spinning one way and the other as one mass of clothes, but not really rolling over or moving around much. I'm sure the machines still do an adequate job, but there is a stark difference in the design and behavior of those machines versus ones built by Whirlpool or Fisher&Paykel. HE TL's seem to have a reputation of "not moving the clothes, not using enough water, being harsh on fabrics", and that's true for some machines, however in my experience, the Whirlpool/F&P designed TLs are the only ones that will uniformly bloom and roll the load over while still being relatively gentle on clothing, while also managing to use less water and laundry additives.
