Umm, do you think maybe you've been been spending too much time trying to pick a dishwasher? A bit more research will tell you that Bosch specs the 500 series dishwashers at 46 dbA and that some of the 300 series are rated at 48 dbA and others at 50 dbA. If that seems reassuring, you may be afflicted by spec fatigue. These differences are measurable but minor. Maybe if you were planning to have them in a bedroom next to your bed and wanting them to run while you slept next to them, then sound levels might be noticceable. But really, for most folks, the noise is not a disruptive kind of sound and not very noticceable when you are not down ot the floor with your ears next to the door trying to suss out differences. Also, except for the short final draining, Bosch dw noise is all pretty much unobtrusive white noise. I can tell that my new 46 dbA 500 series dw is a bit quiter than the 15 year-old 52 dbA Bosch that was replaced. But the old onw was hardly obtrusively noisy. I did not replace the old one because of noise but because the timer/controller died and I could not readily find a replacement part. That was a month ago, What I remember from that shopping episode was that the significant difference between the 500 series and 300 series came down this one thing for me: the tubs for the 500 series are entirely stainless steel while the 300 series tubs have polypropylene plastic bottoms with the rest being stainless steel. As I recall, there were three other differencees that I can recall: the 500 series dishwashers have a small electronic display window (countdown of minutes left in the run), they have a delay start function, and their outside dimensions are, maybe, 7/8-inch less deep. Some folks might find these important. For me, these three were trivial. If those differences are not important to you, and if you are okay with a polypro tub bottom, save yourself $90 and get a 300 series with a panel door. A month ago, when I bought my new dishwasher, the 500 series were only about $90 more than their analogues in the 300 series line.

I think my perspective would depend on whether there were things I really wanted or not and whether I had the $300 to spend. For cabinets, I would definitely think as you did! But if it was, I don't know, an upgrade for something I didn't really care about (car color or something?) I might think like your husband and KD did and have no desire to spend the extra money. I'm glad you chose to get those extra options for your kitchen!

iMHO The Bosch DW water softener is definitely worth additional $300 it if you have hard water. There are some reports that rinse aid is hazardous to the environment. If you dislike using rinsed aid, you can rely more on your water softener to dry dishes faster and spot free. Just dial back the rinse aid to the lowest setting and the water softener should prevent hard water spots and etching. Soft water seems to dry a little better, too. Rinse aid is about $10 for 23 ounces and you can save a little rinse aid to offset the cost of the water softener over the life of the machine. You will need to buy special “dishwasher salt” for the softener though. I’ve recently learned that the 800 plus has been discontinued, though.

I have a Bosch 500 that is about 3 years old, and it's just fine on drying -- there's still water in the crevices or concave areas. No problem drying plates, glasses, pots, or pans.....Plastics dry better if there are fewer of them in the load (i.e. a lot of plastics in the load will still have some water on them, but with only a few pieces of plastic in the load, they'll be properly dry)......that's because of the way the drying cycle works, without additional heat. I actually like that better - not only is it more energy efficient, it means I can put plastics in the bottom rack, because it is no hotter than the top rack (traditionally, plastics were meant to be in the top rack only, because the heat element was in the bottom). I've also found that not opening the machine right away when it stops actually helps the plastics dry better (I suppose because there's still enough heat in the machine to dry them).