My Mom had a washer that did this. I told her to unplug it to soak overnight. That worked, but she hated that thing, sold it, and took my sister's older washer that didn't have any "we know better than you do" features.

It sounds kind of sarcastic, yet that was actually the personal thought also. Really sounds like its comparable to the amount of work with modern machines anyways. Couple minutes of hand cranking, and otherwise, approximately the same. Owned a modern washing machine for years, and not sure if I've ever used almost any of the settings or features other than, "load clothing on default, push start".

Probably sell well in a lot of developed world markets for people who just want to limit their electricity use, live away from the grid, have less reliance on complicated electronics, or minimize money use in an expensive society.

My favorite modern "efficiency" feature has to be the machine refusing to unlock the door for me after it's been "too long". Okay, fine. Reset cycle, add some random item, whoops there went a bunch of water and detergent. Not my problem I guess. Say goodbye to those EnergyStar figures.

At this point with having to read the manual to open the damned door I'm seriously thinking about attaching a belt drive, motor, driver circuit and esp32 running an http with spin/stop commands.

Get a speed queen. Famous for being reliable because it’s a “dumb” machine (in a good way).