Product review (5 stars): Great machine, learning its limits and workarounds.
This machine replaces an 80's vintage Kenmore Ultra Fabric Care washer that I bought used, three years ago.  In both cases, I was looking for an old-fashioned top loader with a simple electromechanical dial timer, multiple water levels, undiluted tap water hot temperature, ability to raise the lid mid-cycle, reliability, and easy and relatively inexpensive to repair.

I originally bought the used Kenmore for the above reasons, plus price.  After doing a bunch of research, I lusted for a Speed Queen, but couldn't justify the price.  We used to have a Speed Queen when I was a kid, I remember.  And it has a ton of good reviews on Amazon and on automaticwasher.org (where a bunch of kind of odd but very knowledgeable washing machine aficianados hang out).

Anyway, the Kenmore was fine, except that it was very hard on our clothes.  Every once in a while some item of clothing would emerge with holes in it, and one time I actually found, as I was moving clothes from the washer to the dryer, that a nice medium-weight cotton blouse of mine (*not* delicate) was caught underneath one of the agitator fins.  So, when the machine completely quit a couple of weeks ago (humming sound when the washer should be agitating, no spin or drain, and eventually no more humming, just an electrical smell), I decided not to get it fixed.  I went back to the used appliance store where I had bought it, looking for a machine with an agitator design that didn't have a 1/4" gap at the bottom.  There was none to be found, other than the plastic front-loaders.  Used Speed Queen residential models are few and far between, and at this time there was one available only if I bought it as a set with the dryer (I like my current dryer with bottom-hinged door just fine), for the same price as buying the new washer, or an older model a 2-hour drive away.

Now I could justify buying a new Speed Queen!

After much internal debate, I decided to go with the middle-of-the-line model.  $50 more than the 412 for the extra rinse switch (a feature lacking on the Kenmore, and which I sorely missed), but not another $50 for 542 with the separate "fabric selector" dial, which would have only confused my husband.  If it had only been $25 more, I probably would have gone for it.  I realized today that this model doesn't have a knit cycle (slow agitate, fast spin), but I can live with that.

This machine weighs twice as much as the one it replaces.  That's because the outer tub and the transmission are made of metal, not plastic.  There's a 3 year parts and labor warranty on the whole machine, 5 years (3y p&l, + 2 yrs parts only) on the motor and cabinet, 10 years (3y p&l + 7 yrs parts only) on the transmission, and lifetime on the tub and stainless steel basket.  So, this thing should last me quite a while.  I kept the top and bottom shipping plugs to protect it when I move.

The installers didn't level the machine when they installed it, and I haven't gotten around to it yet, either, so it's currently about 1/4" lower in the front than in the back.  Seems to work OK anyway, for routine loads (see below for the nonroutine load I'm running right now).

Out of the box, the "Extra large" water level came to about 2" below the top of the inner basket.  I think that's higher than the 3/4 full that others have reported, and it may be that the dealer adjusted it before sending it out.  However, there is a widely circulated video online that shows how to adjust the maximum fill level by turning a screw.  It was very easy to find the screw and see how it works.  It had locktite on it, so rather than break that seal, I used a piece of a plastic zip tie as a shim, after carving a kind of a divot in it with a razor blade, and set the tip of the screw into the divot so the shim wouldn't move.  The thickness of the shim was probably about the depth of one turn of the screw, and it brought my water level up to just below the topmost row of holes (about an inch below the top of the basket).

On the Kenmore, the lid switch was right underneath the lid, and you could depress it with a pencil so that you could watch agitation and/or spinning with the lid open.  On this Speed Queen, the switch is not accessible from the front of the machine.  But on automaticwasher.org forum, someone posted photos of the inside of the back panel showing where the lid switch is.  There is a flat, 1" or 1 1/4" wide lever made of metal and oriented horizontally, that you can actually feel from underneath the back panel on the right-hand side of the machine.  When you raise the lid, the lever lifts up 1/2" or so.  If you reach around the back, you can pull it down and see the agitation.  I have just looped a lanyard around the lever, and hung the other end on the water supply valve, so that i can reach it without having to stretch my arm behind the washer.  Considering that the Kenmore's lid switch broke because of its highly accessible position (an item of clothing in an overfilled load got caught on it), this is an acceptable compromise for me.

On the Hot wash setting the water coming in is 130 degrees (I measured it), which is what my hot water heater is set to.  Cold water is cold, and unfortunately, if you have both hot and cold water supplies full open, the Warm wash water is pretty darn cool.  That is because the water inlet valves on the washer include a flow restrictor on the hot water side, so that with equal water pressure, the ratio is either 60% cold / 40% hot, or 70% cold / 30% hot, depending on where you read.  I've seen descriptions of taking a drill to the flow restrictor, but I haven't done that.  I just tightened down the cold water supply valve until I got a warm temperature I was comfortable with (90 degrees).  It means it takes longer for the tub to fill up, that's all.

So, we've washed several loads of clothes without incident (there are just two of us, and we tend to do laundry one day a week).  Today I decided to test the limits of this thing.  I put in two heavy cotton bathroom floor mats, two smaller slightly less heavy cotton bathroom floor mats, two queen size sheets, and two pillow cases, set the water level to Extra Large, hot water, and normal cycle, and let 'er rip.  Well, that was a bit too much.  One of the sheets got an air bubble under it, and the load wasn't turning over properly with agitation.  So I took out one sheet.  The machine topped off the water level automatically, and now the load was moving better, though I probably should have taken out both sheets.  I could see everything was getting wet, and everything was agitating, it just wasn't really turning over well, as it had with previous loads.  Anyway, I went into the next room to see what hubby was watching on the computer.  The wash and the first rinse finished normally.  When the spin started for the extra rinse, there was a loud noise from the laundry room, and the machine was actually walking out from the wall due to an unbalanced load.  Remember, I mentioned that the installers hadn't leveled the machine?  On opening the machine, I could see that one of the smaller floor mats had gotten wrapped up into a ball inside the remaining queen size sheet, and both large mats were on the same side of the basket.  I untangled and redistributed everything and started it up again, and everything was fine.  And, because of the high spin speed, even those heavy cotton mats were just faintly damp.

So, lessons learned:  1) I really need to get under there and level those legs, and 2) don't put sheets and floor mats (or similar, concentratedly heavy items) in the same load.  I don't blame this on the washer at all, it was all my fault and I knew it when I was doing it.