There are a lot of adjustments you can make just with fire management alone to control a lot of the same variables that you are talking about with damper adjustments. As far as the vents on the door, they probably equal to the same amount of airflow you get when you crack the firebox door. With the Millscale, I noticed that when Jirby is talking about shutting the door, he really means cracking the door.
Franklin doesn't mess with their vent settings. If you notice there are no handles to do that easily in any picture I've seen of the pit room. They may be preset to some setting and may even be throttled back, I don't know. As far as crispy edges, that's kind of the whole point of the aggressive brisket trim. There are other methods of dealing with that I've seen joints do, like placing bits of foil, etc.
Mad Scientist kind of pissed me off as a Franklin owner. Back when he did his review, he praised the pit in the video while trashing it in his comments. A lot of complaints he made, I've seen the same problem on Millscale and other pits. For example, the door leaked. Well, the door leaked on the Fatstack too. I've seen door leaks on a Millscale in several videos. He pointed out that firebox door didn't close. Well, he put the handle on wrong. I've seen that same clip repeated on several Smoking Dad videos, on why the Smoke North pit is better, with Mad Scientist unable to shut the door with the handle on wrong.
The biggest complaint Mad Scientist made was the price, and a lot of these pits are way more expensive, the exceptions being the Workhorse, and the Blue Collar pit. When I bought my Franklin there was a much bigger gap in cost between the Franklin and the Millscale with the Millscale being much more expensive.
Supposedly fire management is harder on the Franklin because of it's size than on the bigger pits, at least that's what I keep hearing. So why do I see in every video on Workhorse, Millscale and other pits people doing the exact same things that I have do, like cutting down splits. These ideas kind of get spread by one guy and because of youtube, they just proliferate and get quoted by everyone else verbatim. It's weird.
With the Millscale and Franklin style pits, that hotspot doesn't move. It's just right there on the right side of the pit. The baffle plate on the Workhorse and Shirley pits are going to cause that problem while giving the illusion of an even cooking surface.
If someone just HAD to have a damper on the Franklin it'd be cheap and easy to add. You could even unbolt the Stack and take it to a welder.
Anyway, these are just some thoughts on the subject. With the types of pits we are comparing there are pros and cons to each of them and you have to tailor your cook to that pit. I don't think you can go wrong with any of them.