There is nothing wrong with electronic controls. Done right, they are fantastic.
Fisher and Paykel, in the original Smart Drive machines, used sophisticated electronic controls and a very clever (but beautifully simple) motor to eliminate some of the common points of failure in old style traditional washing machines - no belts, no transmission. Their advertising at the time said "a component that isn't there can't fail." They are an amazingly reliable machine and would have been more so if they were a bit better protected against moisture getting into the electronics. They also wash the pants off most traditional "all mechanical" machines.
FP smart drives can detect when they have been overloaded and adjust the wash action to suit (self preservation); fill to a precise temperature using only your hot and cold supply, no onboard heater needed; diagnose their own faults and show you the result on a sequence of lights. None of this is at the expense of reliability.
Trouble is too many manufacturers have shaved every last cent off production cost, at the expense of reliability. All so they can pay the CEOs bazillion dollar salaries that they don't deserve. It is the last few dollars that the bean counters have shaved off production costs that have made modern machines so rubbish. (And I include FP in that criticism...) Don't forget that mechanical timers have been cost shaved too, some of the most unreliable machines that I have monkeyed with recently have had hybrid timers - a mechanical timer that advances when the computer chip tells it to. They are made with plastic gears moving in plastic frames with no bearings or lubrication, they wear out in a few years as normal operation, and are so expensive that the machine isn't worth fixing.
Electronics isn't the problem. It is cost cutting by companies that just don't give a s--t.
(United States) 
Comes to the Rescue!
