The purpose of washing pork

The main goal with temperature is to kill anything nasty. Those nasties die based on temperature and exposure. Much like a human could live forever at 95 degrees, for a long while at 110, shorter while at 150, and would die instantly at 750, so for all the stuff in Pork. 160 is considered a safe temperature because at 160, everything dies instantly. The FDA has a chart for all this, here. You'll see that even 120 degrees is safe IF you cook it for 21 hours!

I cook a lot of sous vide, so these temperatures and times are easy to get and be precise about. The thing you need to be careful about is that the time table shows the amount of time that the whole piece of meat needs to be at a given temperature, so make sure you heat it through before you start counting.

I'll regularly do pork chops in the 135 range, and it's lovely and moist without the stringy overcooked texture you get when well done.

Try making braised pork chops with onions. Salt and pepper then brown chops on both sides in a heavy frying pan or skillet. Remove chops, add a little oil if needed, and add a sliced onion, stirring occasionally until the onion is lightly browned. Add water or chicken stock or a combination to the onions to deglaze the pan, then nestle the chops back into the onions, cover and reduce the heat to a very low simmer. Cook this way for about a half hour to 45 minutes (test for fork-tenderness). Check occasionally to add more liquid as needed and to turn the chops.