My dad yanked every cord in our house that way for 20 years and I always figured it was fine since nothing ever broke. Then my laptop charger died after 8 months and I popped it open and saw the wires inside were basically shredded right at the plug. So yeah, grabbing the plug instead of the cable is a small habit change that I get now, that repair guy in Akron is right.

Read your post twice because I did almost the exact same thing last spring on a Whirlpool. What gets me is how a meter can show a solid 240 between the two hots and still fool you, since the neutral is a separate path and the heating element does not even use it. So the drum spins and the timer runs but you get no heat, and you stand there scratching your head with good voltage right in front of you. Here is my real question though. Did you ever figure out why the neutral opened up at that wall box in the first place? Loose backstab, burned wire nut, or a bad receptacle that finally gave out? I ask because if it is the wiring behind the wall and not the outlet itself, swapping the receptacle will just hide the problem until it comes back on the next call.