I had gone through life either using dishwashers that came with my apartment/house, or installing used dishwashers, because I was otherwise punching above my weight.

My current home is the first place I've owned where I've bought all new appliances - which all came with manuals, which all have really good instructions for using the devices the way the product engineers intended them, and I can't believe it took me so long to come around to rtfm for day-to-day stuff. I'd basically leaned on techniques I learned as a kid in the 80s, for decades, even as technology changed. I know not to do this at work, but it was funny realizing what an oversight I'd made in my home life.

But, I've found that for heavily soiled loads, if I throw an extra pod into the bottom of the dishwasher before I run it, that helps. (The extra pod will be dissolved in the first rinse, giving a boost.)