The kitchenaid stand mixer with breadhook is a godsend. I also love my cuisinart convection breadmaker(quality product, cost me close to $200 in a world of $69.99 breadmakers).
I frequently make doughs for foccacia, french bread, italian bread, and pizza dough in my breadmaker, and take it out prior to the baking cycle. It can produce a light and airy dough far easier than I could ever hope to achieve by hand. The kitchenaid is even easier, and allows larger recipies (such as 6-8c flour instead of 4 with the breadmaker. So that's 4lbs of dough vs 2.
Back in november 2008 when my mother died, my family rallied to help clean out mom's stuff from my house, and help me through a difficult time. I took care of my mom and my dad in their later years. Dad passed in 2006 due to side consiquences of colon cancer in the elderly (he was in his late 70's). Mom passed in november 2008, 2 days before thanksgiving (and my birthday) and also my sister's birthday was the day after thanksgiving. So there was a lot of emotion going. Why am I telling you all this?
In their blind enthusiasm to help me, because they knew how much I was there for our parents, they...cleaned my kitchen. That was a cardinal sin. my sister in law LOST my paddle for my cuisinart breadmaker. I was in tears. of course I couldn't tell her she did it, although she was the one cleaning that part of the kitchen.
Thankfully, cuisinart has a fantastic parts program. for only 3 dollars and shipping(which wasn't bad) I got a replacement paddle. I was fearing 20-40 dollars, considering the total cost of the breadmaker.
To get back to the subject of this thread, I suppose I'm suggesting the breadmaker as a great alternative to preparing doughs quickly, without needing to get too many utensils dirty.