The washer works fine, although it is nice if you leave the door open for a day once in a while to dry it out in there otherwise, since the door is sealed, any moisture left in the drum after a cycle just sits there until next time you use it.
Exactly. Mine says to leave the door open as much as possible. No issues with smell on mine.
The dryer doesn't even have cycle times. It just runs until the clothes are dry. It does this using a dryness sensor, the same type which has been around since 1980 or so. If you do run it on a timed cycle, you can adjust the time it runs in one minute increments. So I have no idea what your tech was telling you about mandating short cycle times or burners that aren't hot enough.
I did have a problem with my dryer not drying well (extremely long run times, clothes always came out damp), but it had nothing to do with "the govt". The DOE doesn't even rate dryers for efficiency as they're all basically the same except for heat pump models which are nearly impossible to get in the USA.
Now the problem I had with my dryer is that the vent tube clogged up significantly after a few years of use. Not enough to trigger the back-pressure sensor on the dryer (it doesn't even appear that works to me), but after pulling the dryer away from the wall and investigating it was nearly 50% full of lint in some spots.
So I bought a long extendable vent cleaner and cleaned out the dryer vent thoroughly. Air flow rate went up a large amount and clothes started drying normally again, too.
So check your dryer vent for lint build up every so often.