I called the Bosch customer service line for advice and the rep's answer was to refer me back to the service agent. At this point my he-man partner decided I had given the traditional methods enough time. Think he was more sick of me bringing individual pots and dishes in to show him and saying "honey look at the stuff left on that one." He looked at the dishwasher and wondered if there could be some constrictions in the line that resulted in the bottom sprayer getting lower water pressure. He pulled the lower arm off and stopped and started the machine several times with the arm off. He then replaced the arm and started it up regularly. The machine was a lot louder than it had been in the past. It was almost inaudible before. It appears to be cleaning now, but we'll see what happens.

"I programmed the DW to utilize the intensive drying feature.. whatever that is." The intensive drying feature raises the final rinse temperature so the dishes get hotter and thus dry better. On the European models, it raises the final rinse from 149°F to 158°F. Vinegar will really only help to reduce spotting related to lime - it does not improve drying. That's what rinse aid is for: is causes the water to form a thin film of water on the dishes, rather than droplets, which dries faster and without spots. Vinegar can't do this. You'll have to experiment with the rinse aid setting. When I use the rather thick Electrasol/Finish Turbo Dry rinse aid, seting no. 1 is enough to dry the dishes. Before that, I used rather thin, watery rinse aid and I had to set the dispenser to 2 or 3. On the ASKO: the fan cannot be disabled. What it does is gradually suck warm, moist air out of the tub during the drying cycle. The fan cannot be disabled. However, ASKO's drying system does not involve an extra heater - only the fan - so it won't wrap plastic items (just like the Bosch's condensation system).

Scrape: yes, rinse: no. Unless you are loading smelly dishes (fish, garlic, etc.) into the dishwasher and don't run it until several hours later. In this case, it is advisable to give individual dishes a hot rinse before loading them into the dishwasher. This removes much of the grease, which holds the smell. Other things you may want to rinse off are large amounts of tomato sauce, beetroot and the like as it can discolor plastic items. I am extremely pleased with the cleaning performance of our Bosch. Here's a test load I ran without any scraping (click on the pic): Alex

I've been happy with a Miele for the past 8 years, but since the motor went out ($700 part) I'm looking to replace it, either with another Miele or maybe an Asko. Both would have a water softener. But Miele has a better configuration for wine glasses and the auto open door to get items dryer.