In our case, it means the DW isn't leaving bits of food behind, I can place scraped, but not rinsed dishes and flatware in it, and it all comes out spotless, there's no residue or "stuff" floating in the small am't of water that collects in the bottoms of our coffee cups...unlike our old DW. Also, the dishes just look cleaner (more "sparkle") after washing them in the Miele--esp. when I use the Miele tablets (I use 1/2 per load).

If you are satisfied with the performance of your $225 DW, I'd keep it around. I wasn't nearly so lucky with my pre-Miele DW. It was a $900 Kenmore that could never clean teacups from the day it was installed. I'd never have been tempted to spend Miele money if I was confident a cheaper model would perform adequately.

Any dishwasher that gets the dishes clean enough from which to eat should fit the bill. :-)