Geez, guys, where's your sense of adventure? I thought this was a place for hackers to gather. Instead I see a bunch of old fuddy-duddys going "why ever would you want to do that?" or "don't touch that, it might be important!" Hang your heads in shame.

Dude, I know nothing of hacking dishwasher micro controllers, but I think you went to the wrong place. Maybe the AARP forums might have more adventurous souls.

Motorola has been doing this with devices, even pre-cell phone revolution. Look at their old pager lines - i.e. the Pronto, Bravo, etc. They used to let providers "lock down" the pager with a programming PIN. Want to change the capcode? You need the PIN. Put the PIN in too many times, and you have to replace the code plug, which meant factory service. (Essentially, you had a dead pager.) See here: http://www.qsl.net/kb9mwr/projects/pager/pagerpw.txt

Elenco made all the old lab kits for Radio Shack. They still sell the spring-terminal ones. Here's a page where they describe them: http://www.elenco.com/prolabs.htm They are VERY nice, and the upper-end ones have the schematics only (no numbered diagrams) in later experiments to encourage you to learn how to wire the circuits based upon schematics.

It is like she has 5 chins of hottness!

You probably don't realize it, but UL certification isn't a federal requirement. So ask Sony why they want the UL seal if it bothers you.