Our family has always hand washed cleaning up after meals. It always amused us when we visited friends who had DW’s and saw the cleaning up they did before loading the DW. The time it took to pre-wash they could have finished up and set dishes to drain. I’ve found washing up to be great therapy and an engineering challenge. How to fit everything nicely into the drainer. :D
Well, I scrape into a compost can and fling the into the dishwasher, usually as I’m cooking as I designed my kitchen to have the DW next to both stovetop and sink. I’ve never soaked anything unless it was stuck on really hard. I know people who do their own dishwashing and they don’t cook as much as I do, or as hard. Honestly, if I had one of those huge grand kitchens I see on HGTV I’d have two dishwashers.
I use the bottom rack of a previous dishwasher as a drainer.
Works beautifully and holds a lot.