tide is right: I arrived around 10:45am and most pax were non-US citizens. Another reason for the 1-hour line was that only a few of the immigration counters were open - but I don't mean to complain for this part of the story anyway. The problem was the next 2 hours they kept us waiting without doing anything (we thought so, at least).

As for smiles, I did my best to be pleasant to all the officers because I knew they had power. Perhaps I didn't look angry enough to make them aplogize...?

Fortunately, the connecting flight we missed was just IAD-PHL on United and we took a later flight with no extra fee, so there wasn't any explicit cost we had to pay. I just had to run all over the airport, file a lost baggage claim, and make phone calls to get things right. (I tried to find an agent of ANA at IAD, but their counter was already closed.) Maybe the hardest part was to recover the temper of my wife...