Dishwasher

Use cascade , u have to rinse it anyway before u put in the dishwasher. If the dishes are dirty keep on hot wash pre wash . I always kept to good long cycle if the washer is full ..
sometimes I added few drop of dish washing liquid too . But make sure FEW drops or else it will be another mess to clean.

 

What is the brand of your DW. Not all brands wash well. I used to have Kenmore which was a work horse. Since I have an open kitchen I changed to Bosch a few years back. Bosch is known for it's super quite running DW's. It does give me clean dishes but sometimes there is a hit or miss case with our cooking ways.
Also check if your DW has a food grinder at the bottom or do you have to take the filter out and clean it regularly like I do for my Bosch DW.
Most of the time I give my plates and dishes a quick rinse or if they have been sitting in the sink they would already be rinsed with the hand washing and stuff.
I use the simple Kirkland DW tabs from Costco and fill the rinse portion with White Vinegar. I try to eliminate the use of unwanted chemical rinse agents.
I still prefer to rinse my dishes when I use them.

 

Make sure, u arrange the vessels properly and ensure there is gap between them to let the water flow through them so it gets cleaned. If gap is blocked then the upper compartment may not be washed properly.

 

In my experience:

• economy models have done better than the middle range ones (no experience with high-end models). I think the culprit here is that middle range models now come with eco-friendly water saving options which are not curry-smeared-Indian-dish-friendly..
• Have you tried NOT pre-rinsing? Apparently, that is a thing with current models. If your vessels are too clean when you load, the detergent particles supposedly don't have anything to cling on to...
• Detergent/rinse-aid combo : experiment, and find what works with your machine. In my case, finish tab+finish pre rinse = fail (not cleaned well, not dry). cascade tab + finish rinse = fail (not dry). finish / cascade tab + vinegar = fail (patchy cleaning, patchy drying). cascade tab + cascade rinse = EUREKA!
  • Make sure to choose the appropriate detergent according to water hardness in your area. You may need a water softener...
  • Generally, prefer gel/liquid detergents to powder.
• Wash cycles : I had miserable luck with dishes in the 1 hour wash cycle. It was ALWAYS hit or miss. Then I bit the bullet and started putting it in the 'normal' wash cycle.. and it was better.... (But seriously, 3 hours for a normal wash for dishes is really a big pain. Give me back my economy model ) And then when selected hot water rinse I had very good results. Finally the dishwasher became useful, again. I also (whenever possible) try to run the kitchen faucet hot before starting the dishwasher. (clean the sink or something like that)
• Clean that food filter atleast once in two months.

Some workarounds:
Sometimes, I select the 1-hour cycle without detergent, and let it run for ~15 min for any dishes that I just need to rinse.
If you are particular about pre-rinsing, you too can do this, or use the rinse only cycle (which is usually ~15min max)
This also helps a lot with handwash only dishes, which I then quickly scrub with soap and rinse out. The hot water dishwasher rinse makes the scrubbing quick and painless.

Hope this helps!