The Free Software Definition mentions "user" 22 times and "freedom" 79 times, whereas the Open Source Definition has zero occurrences of these terms. It doesn't seem surprising that the user freedom message isn't getting through if you completely scrub it from the messaging.
While what we know now is that Free came first and indeed Open Source was a different "offering" with a different focus, a response to it...
... I must admit I have heard and actually started to love Open Source several years before even hearing of Free Software