This is definitely a "first world problem and solution," but in case anyone's in the market soon, I thought I'd share…
We'd had our dishwasher for over 12 years, and by last summer, it was starting to show its age—two of the modes couldn't be used at all (the buttons wouldn't activate), and the top rack would constantly want to fall out, despite my replacing its stoppers at some point. It was also quite loud.
Conveniently, I visited my father last summer and saw their dishwasher, which featured a thin silverware rack located at the top of the washer:
I'd never seen this feature before—hey, it'd been 12 years since we looked at new dishwashers—but after one cycle, I was a convert. This tray solves the single worst issue with traditional dishwashers: Loading and unloading the silverware bins.
Loading them is a pain, as people (kids!) tend to not distribute the pieces throughout the bins, knives and forks are sometimes loaded pointy-end-up (kids!), and you have to bend down and usually pull out the lower tray to load the utensils. Unloading is even worse, as you need to avoid the sharp tips on the incorrectly-loaded utensils, and then sort through the mess to put everything in its proper spot.
The top tray solves all of those issues. Loading is a breeze—no bending over, no question which way things go in, and you're forced to properly distribute the utensils. Once the load is done, unloading is so fast and easy—scoop up the utensils by type and drop them in the proper spot in the drawer. Pure genius!
So when we went dishwasher shopping, we had a few requirements, but the most important were near-silent operation and a top silverware rack. After a lot of searching, we chose a Bosch 800 Series model in July of 2022 … and in late February of 2023, it finally arrived1When we bought it, they explained Bosch was still having supply chain issues, and it could take from four to fourteen (!) months for it to arrive..
We're a couple months in now, and the top rack (and the quietness!) has been just as nice as I hoped it would be. It's a wonderful innovation, and highly recommended if you're in the market for a dishwasher in the future.