Actually, I'm not being sarcastic at all.
I haven't opened too many post-infopocalypse appliances but the ones I've seen have been dead simple, apart from their over-"engineered" control boards. These things used to run off mechanical timers, and that is still the underlying philosophy, with new "smart" features mostly UI-based.
It seems to me that one could design a general sequencing board to run many models. Some types would be harder than others (washing machines with brushless motors), and moreso if manufacturers start to add digitally-communicating sensors, but these don't seem insurmountable to handle pretty generally. So a total end-user installed cost of say $400? That seems within the price differential between "low end" and "high end" models that differ in software.
It just takes will since it requires not just picking from what the advertising says, like anything Free. But IMHO this is a social momentum issue and the disadvantages of proprietary trash-land will only be more and more pronounced as there are ever-more features for manufacturers to fuck up.
And as far as epoxy? Manufacturers don't really care if you mod things they've made, they just don't want to be on the hook for supporting this. The protectiveness is rooted in thinking their shoddy software is some kind of "competitive advantage". Completely replacing the control board sidesteps this.