My own personal washing routine...

You should avoid bleach and any type of fabric softener. You don't need bleach to whiten your diapers, periodically sunning your diapers (line-drying them in the sun) is amazing at taking out stains and whitening diapers. The sun is also great for getting rid of odors and killing germs.

If your diapers feel rough, you can add vinegar to the rinse cycle to soften the diapers. Using fabric softener can give your baby a rash, and it can actually reduce the absorbency of your diapers, so you should avoid using it.

Storing dirty diapers...

All you really need to store your diapers is a container with a tight-fitting lid.  The Wal-marts in our area carry a decent little diaper pail that costs about $7.00, it will hold 2-3 days worth of diapers. Although small, these pails are handy if you don't change your baby in the same place all the time (and most people don't).  We have pails upstairs and downstairs in the change areas.  Small pails are also handy if you want to put a pail in your bathroom next to the toilet, which you might want to consider once baby is eating enough solids so that you have to take the poop off the diaper.  

We use a dry pail, there is no need to use a wet pail unless you want to make more work for yourself. If you use a wet pail, you'll have to lug a heavy pail to the laundry room on wash day, and you'll have to fish out dirty diapers from stinky water... not a pleasant task! Using a wet pail is also bad for diapers because when fiber is wet constantly, it breaks down faster. If you are using a well-sealed container to store your diapers, you will not need to worry about smell. If you rinse out your pail periodically, that will eliminate odor, or you can use a pail liner, or you can make your own odor-absorbing pucks using baking soda and essential oils (I'll post instructions at the end of this text).

Washing diapers...

While your baby is exclusively nursing, you don't have to worry about taking the poop off a diaper.  Breastfed poop is water-soluble, and it doesn't smell. Just take a dirty diaper off your baby, and put it in a container with a tight-fitting lid.  On wash day, dump the contents of the container into the washing machine -- no rising, no dunking, no nothing. If your diapers constitute what you would consider a small load, set the washing machine to 'medium'... you want to use more water than you normally would.  Some people like to do a prewash, I've never bothered. The theory behind a prewash is that soaking the diapers in cold water before washing them in hot water will prevent stains. To be honest, I'm not terribly concerned about stains, they are an aesthetic issue -- if your diapers smell clean, they are clean. Sunning your diapers periodically will remove any stains.

Use a small amount of detergent to wash your diapers (1/4 to 1/2 the recommended amount). Using too much detergent can cause buildup which may lead to diaper rash, and it may affect the performance of some diapers.  We use Tide Free (liquid or Powder), it's worked well for us.  We do a hot wash with a cold rinse. Periodically (about once/month), I add baking soda to the wash/vinegar to the rinse... this helps to whiten diapers and eliminate odor.  Never use baking soda alone, it can mess with the pH of your diapers, so it should always be used with vinegar, which can help restore the diapers' pH balance.  A few drops of lavender essential oil (in the rinse) makes your diapers smell nice, and lavender oil has anti-fungal properties.

Drying diapers...

Covers and pocket diapers should not be put in the dryer, they should be air-dryed. When you take them out of the washing maching, since they are made of fabrics that don't hold liquid, covers and pocket diapers are just a little damp, so they will air-dry fairly quickly.

I dry our fitted diapers and prefolds on high or medium heat.

In closing...

I realize there is a lot of text here, but my wash routine is really simple -- basically just a normal 'white' load of laundry. Like anything else in life, you can make your wash routine hard, or you can make it simple. I wouldn't be such a big advocate of using cloth if I didn't think it was 'that easy'. Trust me, if you have kids, you're going to be spending a lot of time in the laundry room anyhow.... Washing cloth diapers can be as simple as washing any other load of laundry.