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My personal pet theory about this it that in big cities we come to treat other people as invisible because we'd be driven a little crazy by having to interact with everyone.
So I tend to think rural and suburban people are more casually affectionate and careful about being polite, and urban people have to be a little tougher and guarded.
New York is a great city, but you have to accept that what's normal for New York is unlikely to be normal anywhere else. That can be both good and bad.
Weirdly, I think Ms. Manners ruled that "what" is the correct response when you need something repeated because you didn't hear it. "Excuse me" didn't apply, if I remember correctly. I'd probably say, "will you repeat that; I didn't hear you." But as you can tell, I use a lot of words.
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