Thanks for posting this, Robert and allowing us a walk down General Electric's memory lane!

When I was very little, I remember one of our neighbors had a house with a built-in dishwasher. It was a builder-installed model,so it was probably 1953 - 1955 model as that was when most of the houses were built. She was the only person in the entire neighborhood with a dishwasher.

The lady that lived there was over at our house one day and was talking to my mom and told my mom she had a dishwasher. Mom asked her how she liked it. (Of course, I was all ears listening to them talk about an appliance,even at age five.) She said she did but occasionally things would fall or accidentally be dropped in the bottom and jam the unit.

I don't the main issues would be things falling through the silverware basket, as obviously the bakets are designed not to do this, unless a hole is broken in the bottom. But careless loading can cause things to fall through the racks. Even today I will occasionially get a spoon or knife in the bottom of the tub where I just threw a handful of silverware in. I also have laid knives on the rack or utensils and have had them fall through.

So GE had a good idea to protects the impeller from potentially jamming or flinging something around and damaging the tub or dishes (or the impeller itself). The mesh is so thin and well spaced that it seems it would, realistically, offer little mass to impede water flow. If it seriously affected washability, then of course General Electric would not have put it there. If you placed it beneath the silverwarae/flatware basket only, if there was an impedence problem then your silverware would not be cleaned properly.

As far as cost cutting methods. Yes, I am the one who said stamped unitized DW front panele were done for that reason. John was intimating it was because of consumer compaints. So am am glad he I agree that indeed it was done by the bean counters as a cost cutting measure.

There many ways to cut down production expenses. Obviously, cut down on quality and/or features is one. There are other means as well such as investing in research to develop replacement materials or utilizing process that are equal or better than the original. Cutting down on labor cost through the use of robotics or through time-efficiency studies can also make profitability increase, without decreasisng quality or consumer features. Profitability may or may not be at the consumer's expense depending on a company's approach.

Of course things are different today than they were in the late fifties when the Mobile Maid was in production. Today you either assemble the units in the U.S.A. from parts that come from China or you just have the whole thing whole thing built in China and ship it over, ha.

Yes, that Plastisol discussion brings back wonderful memories of the distinctive smell our 1973 Potscrubber, with the celery green interior, had. Even our previous '68 Modern Maid, with the porcelain "Robin's Egg Blue" interior had a nice wonderful smell, pressumably due to the rack coatings. I guess that is the "new car" smell equivalent for dishwashers. :)

Yes it was the good old days when cars and even dishwashers were color coded. From the steering wheel to the carpet it was color coodinated. Dishwasher were beautiful inside as well as out with their color coordinated racks, tub and silverware basets. Whether it be bad or good, asthetics played a big role is consumer marketing.

Yes. Bring back those days when you could drive home from work in a color coordinated car, load your dishes into a color coordinated dishwasher. Have color coordinated Kleenex grace your cabinet top. And of course, the ultimate. You and your company could wipe with delightfully color coordinated bath tissue that matched your toilet, tub and sink!

Ah, those were the days.  :)