I renovated my laundry room last year, and replaced the valves with a single-lever shutoff. I suppose the advantage is one action to shut off--one action to turn on. This unit replaced two separate multi-turn stop valves. These took a long time and many turns to turn off and on, and that helped in my decision to go with a single lever style. I also had a shutoff for the cold in the basement just underneath the cold supply for this, but not for the hot; I added a shutoff there. So, I had now, two shutoffs: one set, individual ball valves in the basement to turn off the water supply to the washer set to facilitate service, and the washer set with the single lever controlling both hot and cold.
The original plumber had long-column site-built water hammer arrestors, but I nipped these off and installed sweat style units in their place; they are in the wall. When the home was built, in 1992, these water hammer arrestors were not common, and on all faucet areas of the home I've seen, the plumber had added these site-built arrestors.
Fast acting solenoids on washing machines have been around for decades and are not related to the front or top load style. My 30 year old Kenmores and Whirlpools had them, but the built in arrestors kept the hammer at bay so to speak.
I actually had to install the washer box twice; the first time I tried it, I followed the instructions for the Watts sweat style install, but because you had to install the valves (they snap into the styrene plastic frame and box) first, before getting the plumbing ready, I learned quickly that styrene catches fire before solder melts. I have no idea what they (Watts) were thinking--they even show in the instructions someone sweating the joint with a propane torch and the flame an inch or so from the styrene. I'm here to tell you that's not possible.
What I ended up doing is use female sharkbite adapters on the valves, with a 16"-18" length of copper tubing on the end. THAT distance was far enough away from the styrene that I could sweat those joints.
My new home in North Carolina is all PEX and all push fittings.