Looser,

This is certainly an interesting report, and there's no doubt that wash performance has improved in front loaders over the last decade or so, but I think that what's being refered to here is the ability of the washer to remove stains, and this is a natural consequence of increasing detergent concentration with low water levels. The report indirectly refers to this where it shows a graph that shows that using more detergent increases wash performance.

However, if you look at the bigger picture there are other considerations that should go into judging the overall effectiveness of a washer:

Mechanical wear and tear on the clothes. This is reduced with higher water levels, and increased with lower water levels because with lower water levels the clothes tend to rub against other more. This makes it extra important to watch out for things that can catch and tear clothes. Zippers, buttons, and snaps come to mind.

Soils & Particulates wash performance. Soils and particulates wash performance is generally related to mechanical action, so lower water levels help, but then once these soils are loosened from the clothes, higher water levels help to flush them away, so the best contributor here is wash cycle time. The longer you wash, the better your performance. This is probably why front loader cycle times are so long.

Color Transfer. Color transfer is when the dyes in the clothes bleed from one garment to another. Low water makes this problem worse because the clothes rub against each other more in low water washers. Using HE rated detergents can help with this problem though.

Pet Hair & Lint Removal. Pet hair and lint generally need to be floated off the garments, and then flushed away. More water helps this, but low water can cause lint & pet hair to redeposit back onto the clothes.

Rinsing: Spray rinses are very effective at removing soluble detergent using very little water, but soils & particulates can get trapped in the folds of the clothes because the spin forces keep them compressed against the spinning wash tub.

Wrinkling & Twisting: Wrinkling and twisting can be made worse by super high spin speeds. This is because the ultra high spin forces squeeze all the water out of the clothes, and then the rushing air blow drys them. The result is that twists and wrinkles get dried into the clothes before the dryer gets a chance to steam them out.

There are other considerations as well. Noise & vibration, capacity, reliability, ease of use, etc ...

I agree that low water levels increase wear on clothes and the risk that things may get damaged by zippers and so on. Compared to TLs, I think that FLs are doing a good job at gentleness. I have had bras wrapped around the agitator and shirts or pants with strings where the strings were wrapped around the agitator and other clothes.

Lint and hair can redepostit on clothes in a FL, but the dryer normally takes care of that. Sometimes you find little hair balls that are easy to pick off. That's not really a big deal, but a traditional TL may have a slight advantage here.

The color transfer can be prevented by adding a color catcher sheet for colorful clothes that haven't been washed all that often. It can also be overcome by sorting the laundry and doing bright and dark loads.

The wrinkling may be a little worse at high spins, but most of the time the dryer will still be able to get them out. It also helps to leave the clothes slightly damp when taking them out of the dryer and immediately hangin them up.

Besides the amount of detergent, the water temperature also makes a big difference in cleaning results. It is definitely much more energy efficient to heat up the small amounts of water a FL uses compared to traditional TLs. That's why FLs can afford to have sanitary cycles that reach 170 or even 200F (of course that doesn't work with all fabrics).

The vibration is not such a big issue in Germany where the houses have sturdy floors no matter where you have the laundry room. I understand that some FLs, especially the high capacity ones, can't be installed on the second floor of some houses here. It's not really the wahsers fault if Americans can't build sturdy homes...;-)

I just wanted to point out the fact that you can get good cleaning and rinsing performance by using relatively small amounts of water and electricity.

You are right about the wrinkling, but leaving the clothes a little damp, kinda negates the whole idea behind having a high spin speed. I think the point is that there are limits to the benefits you get with higher speeds, and if speeds are too high you start to get other problems, like the aformentioned wrinkling.

You are also right about water temperature being important, but the point I was trying to make was that there are other things to consider when judging overall performance. Also, you have to be careful with high water temperatures, because there are some soils and stains that actually get set by temperature. Blood is an example. If you wash a garment with blood on it in hot water, the stain will set, and you'll never get it out.

Right again about vibration not being a big issue in Germany. The homes over in Europe are built with a lot more stone than wood, because they chopped all their trees down centuries ago. Not so in North America though. Here the homes are all constructed of wood, because it's cheaper, and this is something that's not generally considered when Europeans extol the virtues of front loaders to people in the rest of the world.

Also, European-market machines are typically smaller and don't spin the load-sizes typical American-market machines do so there isn't the potential for as much transference to the the supporting structure.

washer_man,
it is right that blood and other protein-based stains can set by washing them too warm. That's why good FLs have a profile wash that starts out cold and then heats the water up during the wash. Most European washers don't even have another option because they get hooked up to the cold water faucet only. But then they also get the advantage of using "real" power of 220V...;-)

You are contradicting yourself by first saying that there are not enough trees left in Germany to build houses of wood and then - correctly - stating that Americans use wood because it is cheaper. There are still enough trees in Germany and other European countries (and wood-log houses actually gain in popularity), however, not many people want to live in plywood and "cardboard" houses. Yes, the German houses are quite a bit more expensive, but at least they are sturdy, don't have problems with termites and so on.

I think the manufacturers are starting to adress the vibration issue. You can't really blame European companies for not knowing all the weaknesses of US homes.

asolo,
you are right about the smaller capacity of the standard European machines. However, there are a lot of machines that have much higher spin speed (up to 1,600 rpm) then the ones you can buy in the US. So there still would be the potential for vibration issues.

There is good and bad about TLs and FLs, I agree with that. No washer has the perfect and ultimate design that couldn't be improved. Overall, I still think that the advantages of the FLs are worth putting up with the few problems. It is a personal choice, but I agree with the regulations to increase water and energy efficiency. There seem to be some decent HE TLs out there. I am all for that!