Be careful!
I think you're being ripped off on the prices for Ariston and other Merloni machines in the US. In Europe they're bottom to middle of the line machines that retail at low to medium prices. They're not bad, but they're equivilant to similarly positioned US machines i.e. they're not designed to last for ever and they're certainly not even remotely attempting to compete with the likes of Miele or AEG.
If you're paying a huge premium for them, you're being ripped off they're mass-market middle of the road stuff and if anyone's claiming otherwise in the US they're lieing!
Hotpoint-Ariston would be equivilant to Whirlpool or GE.
The European market is a little more compeditive, I think, as we've still got quite a few more players than the US which seems to have consolidated into a few very large manufactuers.
Although, that being said, Europe basically splits into:
Indesit (Merloni): Indesit, Ariston-Hotpoint, Scholtes and a lot of other small brands like in the UK: Creda, Cannon.
Electrolux : More brands than you could shake a stick at! Including Electrolux, AEG-Electrolux, Zanussi-Electrolux, Tricity-Bendix-Electrolux, Arthur Martin-Electrolux, Zoppas, and Wascator
BSH Group: Bosch (Domestic Appliances only), Siemens (Domestic Appliances only), Gaggenau, Neff, Thermador, Constructa, Viva, Ufesa.
Candy Group: Candy, Hoover, Rosieres as well as a few smaller regional brands like Zerowatt and Iberna
SMEG (Smalterie Metallurgiche Emiliane Guastalla)
Miele
& some other smaller players and recent arrivals like LG and Samsung.