The Maytag Commercial you mentioned does have a Delicate cycle so what would be the issue with "delicate clothes"?

Save yourself some money by properly taking care of the machine like taking the wet clothing out at night and wiping the gasket off and leave the door propped open Then you should probably run two cleaning cycles at least, with an entire bottle Citric Acid, found in the canning section of Walmart. If your gasket is moldy, spray some bleach cleaner on it. After that look on YouTube how to increase the water usage in your Samsung, it will take about 15 minutes and is easy to do. You will have one fine cleaning machine then.

mamapinky0 - good point. My experience with the older top loaders is that they always seemed to have a slight gap between the lid and rest of the top. Im sure the newer top loaders have a better seal.

georgect - i read in a few places that a washing machine with an agitator is rougher on clothes than a machine without an agitator. My thought was that the delicate cycle on a front loader would be more gentle than a delicate cycle on a top loader with agitator like the Maytag i was mentioning.

MiMi - I appreciate the suggestion. Ive tried cleaning the mold out of my machine a number of times and it always comes back fairly quickly. The rubber seal is stained with mold. Nothing i do seems to get it out. The mold issue is due to the lack of proper care and upkeep on the washer. No doubt it is our fault. I'm just tired of arguing with my wife about leaving the door open, wiping the seal and not leaving clothes in the machine. With a top loader i can eliminate the wiping of the seal and i can leave the door open when i get home from work. All she has to do not wash clothes before she goes to bed.

You didn’t mention this but does leaving wet clothes in it overnight make the clothing smell mildewed or sour? I would sure think it would especially in hot weather. Reminds me of an estate sale I went to that had a almost new whirlpool top load set for sale I opened it up to look inside and the last load of clothes the deceased owner had done was still in the machine, dried in a perfect circle around the agitator and hard as a brick! It just made me sad ... so even in a top loader your clothes may get smelly and or dry so much they will be a wrinkled mess

MrRoarke... some points of info:

Frontloaders are not sealed as air-tight as people believe. They all have a vent duct from back of the tub to the top/rear of the machine, although the duct by itself doesn't promote significant airflow. Airflow requires both an ingress and egress. Simply leaving the door cracked open vs. latched shut makes a difference. Leaving the dispenser drawer pulled slightly open also helps.

Using chlorine bleach on a recurring basis (weekly load of kitchen and bath linens, for example) goes a long way to preventing mold in any washer. Wiping the door boot is reasonably a minor factor ... the residual water left there is from the final rinse, not dirty water from the wash period.

Delicate cycles on frontloaders can be too delicate. They fill to a higher level to promote the load floating/rolling vs. lifting/falling. I once washed several sheer/lightweight curtain panels in a frontloader when helping a friend clean up one of his rental properties between tenants. I figured Delicate would be appropriate. Nope. The items floated to the point of barely even rolling and there were gobs of undissolved powder detergent left in them. I ran them again on Normal to much better results.

Mold problem. I don;t think anyone has mentioned wash temps. playing a role in schmutz buildup in your washer outer tub. A constant use of cold water only washes with only liquid detergents and liquid fabric softener WILL cause a smelly moldy build up in the outer tub. Your front loader does not use much water so using hot and warm will not add much to your energy bills. Most modern fabrics can tolerate hotter temps. than the scaredy cat wash in cold labels imply. If a retailer is selling non pre-shrunk all cotton clothing without saying so then that is their problem, not ours. As others mentioned above first try a hot wash with bleach and then a couple citric acid hot cycles and see if that eliminates the problem, if your machine has a special cleaning cycle even better. If after this you still have to replace consider both the above Maytag as well as a Fisher Paykel wash plate top loader which unlike some washplate machines does have effective cleaning as well as Consumer Reports recommendation of frontload LG-get one with a built-in heater- which they say is very reliable for the time period they say is the cost-effective life of a modern washer, which of course is much shorter than your grandmother's 30 year old Maytag toploader. I don't know if a Miele meets your $1500 limit but they have special wool and delicate cycles and are considered by most of their owners to be the ultimate, should take everything except your king comforter. Good luck and let us know if cleaning cycles solve the smell issue.