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Doesn't the current install of FreeBSD default to 4k blocks even on 512-byte drives?

No. There is a vfs.zfs.min_auto_ashift sysctl you can poke now instead of messing about with gnop, but it still defaults to 9 (512b).

Yes. As do all of the illumos derived builds.

No they don't. They create the pool based on the ashift that the drives report, unless you override it at pool creation.