Modern dishwashers are great. I was firmly of your opinion for years, stubbornly a hand washer. Now I rinse dishes until there are no chunks left, sauce, grease, etc is all OK. Put them into the washer, and most evenings decide it's full enough and click start. The next day clean dry dishes are loaded directly into the cabinets.

I wasn't sold on dishwashers until I learned that they use less water than handwashing

I get rid of bigger chunks only and left sauce and grease. My dishwasher has no problem with that.