Glad to hear Speed Queen is going back to original quality, since I had planned to buy one in the future! (I heard somewhere that the change was due to water limitation requirements, but...)
I'd advise against one without an agitator though (top load anyway, my front loader worked fine until it died). I have one without the agitator and I hate it. When I had a dog, I'd have to use my parent's machine to wash her blankets because no matter how "heavy soil" I tried to set my washer, they still came out filthy.
Even my regular clothes have to go in under heavy wash or they don't come out clean. I use HE soap, but still have suds in the wash sometimes. I know I'm not the only person who has had this issue. I'll never buy one of these again, and I almost can't wait until mine dies--I won't even bother to repair it like I normally would. I just can't have it die quite yet because I am paying off my lot of land, so that's going to cash-strap me more than I like. At least enough not to replace a kind-of working washing machine yet.