Frigidaire (as of 2006) was US-made
My 2140 has a decal inside the door frame (dryer) that says the machine was made by Electrolux Home Products, Augusta, Georgia. Unless that is only the office address and the factory is elsewhere (Mexico?).
Anyway, I agree with you about US machines being way behind the European competition on features. A lot of this is because the US only rediscovered FLs c. 1997 when Maytag began marketing its Neptune washers. I believe Frigidaire may have made a FL that predated Neptune, but at most there was only one or two choices (other than an imported Miele) for FLs in the early and mid 1990s.
The result is that most consumers--who are not regulars here at AW--are buying a FL for the first time. There is a learning curve: their previous washers, and their mothers' previous washers, were nearly all TLs, if they were born/raised in USA.
The result is a pool of consumers who are not as well informed about features and don't really know how to "shop" a FL, other than color and size capacity, and sometimes an integrated heater is seen as a plus (though most buyers don't realize that the heater is used on many machines only for a Sanitize cycle, and that for other cycles the machine just pulls hot and cold water line temps, with Auto Temp regulating the mix in better models).
Our dials don't even give a temperature, they just say Cold, Warm, Hot. If you read the manual, you may find the definition of Cold, Warm, Hot, or maybe not. My 2140 does not have Auto Temp Control, so I know that Hot = hot water line temp, Cold = my cold water line temp, and Warm is somewhere in between. Had I known what Auto Temp Control was when I went shopping in 2006, I would have paid extra for the 2940, which has this feature (that limitation aside, 2140 does an excellent job of cleaning, and to be honest, after a week of using a Miele in NYC last week, I couldn't really see any difference in cleaning ability, plus the Miele took longer and had a smaller capacity).
You have to search the manual or specifications just to know what the spin speed is, most buyers don't even know their max spin speed. We don't have a uniform, EU-style rating system which rates with letters in the categories of Efficiency (least water and energy) and Cleaning Ability. We can sort of glean the water and energy efficiency of various models by determining if our local water agency and gas company gives rebates (there is a "water factor" that indicates how much water is needed to clean one cubic foot of laundry, you can look up the ratings but they aren't clearly posted at the store on each model).
Some people rely on Consumer Reports to make buying decisions. I think some of their reviews are crazy, but if you know nothing about the field, it's a better guide than nothing. One limitation of CR is that they don't test models over five years for reliability, they only test brand new models for cleaning ability, noise, energy/water consumption, etc. The Frigidaire 2940 consistently ranks as one of CR's "Best Buy" choices, for combination of washing ability and reasonable price (they won't give a "Best Buy" rating to something they feel is overpriced, even if it is a quality product). Ads for the 2940 often state that it is a CR Best Buy, and the machine is rarely discounted because the CR rating to some degree creates increased demand for the model.
So in summary, the US consumer is generally far less informed than a European consumer, and many are buying a FL for the first time. Like someone who grew up in New York City or London, without ever owning a car, now having to make an intelligent car choice.
As for the 2140's dispenser---the 2140 has compartments for detergent (but only one), fabric softener, and liquid bleach (yeccchhhh!!). I never use the latter two at all. I use only detergent and a small amount of borax (water softener for our hard water, works somewhat like Calgonite), both in the detergent drawer. Very rarely might use oxygen bleach powder, maybe once a year.
There is no pre-wash detergent dispenser, BUT it makes sense when you learn that 2140 has a Soak cycle, but no "automatic pre-wash". That is, you load the clothes and a half dose of detergent, the clothes soak in cold water and detergent for maybe 30-40 minutes, then the machine drain, spins out and shuts off (with clothes still quite wet). You then restart the machine with an appropriate wash cycle and a full dose of detergent (for me, this would be 50 ml of Tide HE powder or slightly less of German Persil or Via=Swedish Ariel).
There is no built-in pre-wash, and you cannot program the machine to advance automatically from the end of Soak to a Wash cycle, but the dispenser makes sense in the context of the machine's capabilities. Since some machines here lack either a Soak or a Pre-wash cycle, I am grateful to have this capability, even if I have to reset the machine (and I only do this for heavily soiled loads) after Soak cycle.
The current line of Frigidaire Affinity washers do not appear to have a Soak cycle; you can still buy the 2140 or 2940, but they appear to be phasing them out. The disappearance of the Soak cycle may have something to do with boosting their water efficiency ratings (or maybe a government requirement to use less water). There is an option called "Stain Clean", which stops the wash cycle for about 8-10 minutes of soaking, but the water would be the same temperature as the wash temperature (i.e. could be hot, whereas I understand a soak cycle works best in cold or barely warm water).
