I'm not an expert but I do have second hand experience though a girlfriend. When she needed to replace her dishwasher because it broke, she couldn't very easily without dealing with major issues with the floor because the floor had been installed after the dishwasher and was making it hard to remove the dishwasher.

I second elphaba's comment. We had a parquet floor that had been installed over several layers of vinyl & linoleum. When we had to replace the dishwasher, the installer actually had to cut the old dishwasher in pieces with a saw and he and my husband both had to work at it to get it out.

Years ago, my parents replaced their sheet vinyl floor with tile. They left the cabinets in place, but replaced the flooring under the fridge & dishwasher to avoid the trapped appliances the previous posts mention. The only issue is that when they replaced their cabinets several years later, their contractor needed to make sure the cabinets & the island had (slightly) larger footprints than the old so the old flooring didn't show.

Hope this helps,
Michelle

We also replaced a floor just as you're planning. It did indeed cause interesting times when we replaced the DW - twice. Not impossible, but more than difficult. This fix lasted for about 9 years When we replaced the cabinets a couple of years ago, we discovered that our 1971 cabinets had a smaller footprint than the new ones. I think this is going to depend on how old your old cabinets are. In our case, it was a good excuse to do all new flooring...and extend it into the LR...and the hall...and the MBR...you know.