My “modern” (20-year-old, which is solidly modern by this standard) dishwasher cleans much better than I remember my childhood dishwasher cleaning. It also doesn’t melt plastic on the bottom rack, which is a fantastic feature. The main downside is it takes two hours, and I think my childhood dishwasher took one hour.

My modern front load washer gets clothes clean. It also doesn’t severely abrade them. As I understand it, this combination of features is unavailable in a top-loader. Top-loaders with agitators clean well but damage clothing due to rubbing against the agitator. Top-loaders without agitators don’t clean well.

(Fundamentally, front loading is just a better design. There is no reason to submerge clothes for the whole cycle; to the contrary, one wants the clothes to move relative to the water. With a top loader, the clothes and the water move as a unit and gravity doesn’t help at all except to the extent that it avoids needing a seal on the door. With a front loader, gravity actively assists the process. And, aside from saving water, the fact that less water is used means that less detergent is needed to achieve a given concentration.)

Make fun of modern low-water appliances all you like, but a lot of them are much better than the things they replaced even if you don’t care about water usage.