Ever since they started focusing on the daughter becoming a cop, I’ve lost interest in Bosch.
What? I wash dishes!
One benefit of pre-washing is that it removes the bulky stuff that makes the impeller work harder. The impeller is a propeller inside your dishwasher that pushes the gunky water into your garbage disposal. The less bulky food on the dishes, the easier it is for the impeller to push the water, and the impeller motor will have a longer life. And the more food on the dishes, the more food that gets flung around to all the other dishes during the cleaning. Since it’s relatively easy to get the dishes 90% clean, you can quickly pre-wash and leave the harder 10% to the dishwasher. You can do that last 10% yourself, but that’s the part that is often more work and hassle than getting the 90% off.
Sure- there’s definitely utility in scraping the big chunks off. But what I’m talking about is essentially doing 80% of the labor of hand washing everything, and then doing 100% of the labor of putting them in the dishwasher, running it, and taking them out and putting them up.
Why not just do the other 20% and have done with it? That’s the part I don’t get- it’s almost like they’re using the thing as a backstop for cleaning and to sanitize.
Because then my gf will be unhappy about the dishwasher seals drying out.
Katzenbaum’s Theory of Diminishing Dishwasher Returns TM.
Yeah, I’ve pretty much learned everywhere “do not rinse your dishes before putting them in the dishwasher!!! because it makes it not work as well, enzymes, somesuch shit, blah.” Now, I do brush off obvious solids/leftovers/leaves on the dishes that have chunks of solid on them, but I don’t scrub them or anything–just bat them off with my hand and stick 'em on the rack. It has served me fine. No issues. Otherwise, why bother with a dishwasher? I only hand-wash large items. I’ve gone up until 5 years ago of hand washing everything; I do not want to go back. I had no idea how wonderful dishwashers were.
I often give plates and glasses a quick rinse, but I do no more than 20% of the work of hand-washing dishes, and in many cases 0% of that work, before putting them in the dishwasher.
Details please? Mostly for the fun cat story, but I am curious. 
Grabs pearls, fumbles towards fainting couch
Well, the controls are a touch pad at just the right height for a cat’s paws to trigger them. So when the kitties stretch up begging for whatever they’re begging for, they’ll touch them. The second youngest cat has started it several times. I think he turned on heated dry once too.
We’ve had a Bosch for about six years and it’s fantastic.
My only complaint is that the jets get clogged with gunk that is very difficult to clean out. The rotors come out easily, but the only way to get debris out of the jets is with a toothpick and a pipe cleaner and rinsing it in the sink. It seems like there ought to be some way to open the rotor up and just rinse all the junk out, but there isn’t. (I see why it would be hard to make it that way so that it still seals well enough to work.) It’s about a five minute task a couple of times a month. (We run it at least 5x/week.)
That may be a problem with all dishwashers, though.
Yep. I have a KitchenAid, and trying to clean out those sprayers is the worst. Best I could usually do is poke the food particles back in, hope I shake some of them out, and then a week later, they’re back at being somewhat clogged. Once in awhile I can get lucky and pull the gunk out but, typically, I can’t get enough grip on it whether using fingers, fingernails, or tweezers, to do so. I’ve always wondered why they’re not manufactured so they could be split apart or otherwise have the innards accessible. Maybe your supposition is correct, that it can’t be sealed enough otherwise, but that just doesn’t seem like it should be problematic.
The only time that happens to me is if the filter at the bottom of the tub isn’t properly seated. The jets draw their water from below the filter, so there shouldn’t be any chunks in there unless they’re getting past the filter somehow. That can happen if you take the filter out for cleaning and don’t put it back in properly.
That video has convinced me. As soon as I’m out of packs, I’m switching to powder. It makes sense, and those packs are ridiculously expensive.
My dish washer (new that I installed myself) is a Frigidaire. It was the cheapest one I could find that was available right away. I have no complaints. It’s quiet, it cleans the dishes beautifully, and I could afford it.
We bought a Bosch dishwasher once. It malfunctioned within a couple of days, the place that sold it to us sent out someone to repair it and it worked - until day 29 when it quit again.
Since it was within the 30-day return window, we returned it and were out just the installation fee. 
Never again.
Our current aging dishwasher is functional, mostly. We’ve ordered a Kitchenaid to replace it.
Oy. I’m stuck in undecided land.
I can clean every dish I have (eight big plates, eight small plates, eight bowls) and all of my silverware (eight of everything) and glasses and a bunch of other things and the whole bunch comes out clean.
The OP has already decided on a new dishwasher but I wanted to throw in my two cents about Bosch. We hated it.
Sure, it was quiet, energy efficient and cleaned well enough. But when we cook, we create leftovers, and that means we have a lot of plasticwear to wash. The lack of a heated drying cycle meant we could start the dishwasher when we went to bed, and in the morning the plasticwear would not only still be wet, but leave all the other dishes, glasses, pots and pans, etc. still wet. After a week of drying everything in the dishwasher by hand after every load, we sent the damn thing back and bought a KitchenAid, which cleans well, is almost as quiet, and dries everything.
Our Bosch dishwasher has a drying cycle, so it must be model dependent. Another positive vote for Bosch, ours came with the house we moved into and it has been the best I’ve ever lived with. There are occasional error code glitches on the display that go away with a quick power button press, otherwise it has been great.
Ours has a drying cycle, but it’s not heated, and all the plastic stuff ends up wet.
We have a drying rack on the counter, and the plastic all ends up there for a while. Honestly, my husband used to usually turn off the drying cycle of our previous dishwasher, so it’s not very different.
That’s not been our experience with Bosch. Maybe the models are different.