Buying a new Dishwasher

So our current dishwasher, that I believe is as old as our house, is failing.  Not failing to stir water around, just failing to actually remove all dirt and soap from the dishes which was our fervent hope.

Its time for a replacement.

I looked at sears.com and was quickly overwhelmed by where dishwashers have gone (Im not thinking "Come to the dark side" or anything, its just - wow, there are a lot of new features!).  Dishwashers, now, have these quirky feature titles attached to them like "TurboZone™", "QuietGuard Ultra™", "SmartWash with Optical Soil Sensor™", "PermaTuf Tub™", "EXXACT™ Wash with Flow-Control™", "UltraQuiet™ II" and "PERFECTDOOR™".  I dont know what they all mean, really, but they sure sound cool!  They have 2 drawer dishwashers, washers with sunken, hidden, extra special buttons - even ones that add detergent for you!  They sense dirt to adjust the water, have super sound dampening and multiple wash arms (instead of just the old stand by of a single arm that thrusts upwards in amongst the dishes).  Gentle cycles for china and super cycles for baked on food - its an insane array of choices.

But, do they wash dishes?

Hopelessly lost with verbage and a wide variety of price points, I turned to consumerreports.com.  Salvation!  They actually have this new test for dishwashers where they put in a dish with baked on - yes, BAKED ON! - brownie mix without pre-soak or rinsing and then see how clean the dish comes out afterwards.  Their report found that a relativley "cheap" Amana ADB1500AW at $330 cleaned the dish as well as the $1000+ dishwashers - in fact, even better than some of the more expensive models (http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/appliances/dishwashers/dishwashers-206/overview/index.htm).

After reading the Consumer Reports reviews and comparing features against what we really need/want, we went with a fairly inexpensive $500 model that received an 86 score (CR highest score given was an 87) for a Kenmore.  Dishes - watch out!