But semnatic arguments are so fun!

Your riding environment sounds fairly atypical. I ride what would probably be fairly typical environment for most people. Nothing big-city super-urban like NY (although I did ride around SF for a few days), but some moderate density urban, some suburban, a lot of rural/scenic highways, and a fair amount of forest/mountain backroads. Also some freeway. Often there is a good amount of shoulder available but not always.